Shattering reincarnation

Shattering reincarnation is the Vaestic doctrine that the souls of those who die without transcension disintegrate before their fragments are reincarnated. Short of transcension, Vaestic orthodoxy denies the possibility of a human soul reincarnating as anything other than a human, but one soul, upon death, will shatter, its fragments then promiscuously recombining with others and reincarnating as many people at once. It is therefore impossible to claim to be the full reincarnation 'of' any particular ancestor. The doctrine of shattering is not laid out explicitly in the earliest Vaestic texts, the Notaries and Commentaries, though various passages in these have become associated with it, such as the remarks in the Commentaries of Lasuris on the violent trials of the soul that fails to transcend the material world and the Prophet's own references, as in his condemnation of Sirputis, to the 'destruction' of wayward souls. In its received form, shattering was established dogmatically by Universal Prophet Viswald II in 1472 in response to the heresy of equilibrianism, which held that the number of all souls never changes. With the Neritsovid reforms and consolidation of Vaestism it became one of the centrepieces of Vaestic orthodoxy.

In contrast to the cosmic apocalypse of the Execration, which until recently remained largely the province of academic speculation, shattering reincarnation plays an important role in Vaestic folk mythology, where hauntings and similar purportedly supernatural occurrences are often ascribed to the torments of the souls of those who fail to attain transcension. Tales of failed spirits navigating the inhospitable realms of Light and Dark, often seeking bargains with demons, are a perennial favourite feature of Vesnite storytelling, and indeed are sometimes invoked in the moralising of internalist Scholars. The cultural significance of the Vesnite fear of shattering is shown in the scurrilous 17th-century rumour claiming that the Neritsovid Emperor Lyudodar had been driven to his uncompromising intolerance by visions of the shattering of his half-brother Neritsobor, a yarn that would be taken up by nostalgist anti-Neritsovid historians in the 18th century. Similar stories have been told of other controversial Vesnite figures such as Vsevolod the Great. Certain traditions of amphimancy attempt through such methods as astrology and numerology to divine the composition of the souls of particular individuals and their likely prospects without transcension, but these have no official standing.