Modalities of Knowledge

In Vaestism, the modalities of Knowledge are the three forms in which Knowledge, the great objective of Vesnite religion, is sought and articulated. As established in 1897, they are internalism, the study of the human spirit and its outworkings; externalism, the study of the natural world beyond the spirit; and socialism, the study of the characters formed by humans in their mutual relations and collaboration. To deny the distinction of the three modalities, or to occlude one under another, is heretical, but various perspectives on the division of Knowledge and the respective worth of each have developed since their establishment. In the contemporary context the disputes between these viewpoints have been labelled the 'War of Modalities', as the consensus perspectives of the three forms have developed in markedly different directions since the Long War.

Establishment

Prophet Yorsephor (r. 1897–1906)

The three modalities of Knowledge were dogmatically established by Universal Prophet Yorsephor in 1897. By its second utterance, Yorsephor's decree also officially rendered Strong Externalism heretical and initiated the Tempering of the Prophecy. Its pivotal section runs:

... The Throne therefore in the fullness of its majesty rightly considers, determines, promulgates, utters, and therewith establishes for all eternity along that great and long-impossible line between Light and Dark, which is the trying yet beloved path of Knowledge, the luminous and tenebrous road of justice to which the Throne, in this most sacred Prysostaic Place at the summit of the cosmos, binds and commands the Savants by their First and Holiest Prostration in order that they might accomplish Supreme Transcension and escape through the might of truth their own destruction and the gathering, dreadful, universal condemnation of the World:

First. That all Knowledge is expressed in Three Modalities, which are of equal validity as is all Knowledge and thus command the honour and right behaviour of all the Savants, yet are distinguished by physic, ethic, and metaphysic, and do not occlude or infringe upon each other, but in their relations rather complete and affirm and always replenish their majestic discoveries, each unto the others; namely, the Knowledge that Is Directed Inwards; the Knowledge that Is Directed Outwards; the Knowledge that Is Directed Towards the Characters Shared by Men.

Second. That those who deny the aforesaid first and solemn utterance rebel against the Throne in foul heresy, and just as that First and Eight-Times-Greatest Antecedent of the Throne who once annihilated the gates of the world spoke, 'He betrayed his spirit, and like his body it was destroyed', precisely so shall they be wrought asunder in a most sacred and Knowledgeable Tempering of the Prophecy, to set aright the entire Oecumene of the Savants amidst the roaring holiness of the flames that prove their faith ever and anew in the paradox of light and heat. ...