Transcension
Transcension, in Vaestism, is the moment in which a soul escapes the cycle of shattering reincarnation, moving beyond the material world entirely. It is the ultimate objective for every Vesnite, and is attained by 'the Practice' of regimentation of free will through Knowledge. The Prophet of Vaestism taught that transcension would be the last and greatest result of his teaching, and Vaestic orthodoxy holds that it only became possible for humans to attain once the Prophet achieved apotheosis and broke the world-gates in the Battle of the Holy Storm, opening a route for human salvation from the Execration. Transcension requires the careful mystical negotiation of the realms of Light and Dark, the dueling fundamental principles of all existence, a process that is often conceived as the 'path of Knowledge'. For most people it is necessary to follow in the footsteps of Scholars as the leaders and pioneers on this path, which is rendered possible by receiving their Knowledge through regular apportation. Those who are believed to have achieved transcension, or at least to have merited it, are often the subjects of official or popular transcension cults.
The nature of transcension, its process, and its results are central topics of Vaestic hierology. In the mystical definitions of the Commentaries on Knowledge, transcension is the moment in which the supreme unity of Knowledge is realised and the 'infinite war' of Light and Dark is in an instant surpassed. The condition of the soul after transcension, according to the First Commentary of Lasuris, is one of 'freedom beyond change and order, beyond form and duration, absolute and eternal'. In popular Vaestism, this 'absolute freedom' is often depicted as an otherworldly paradise, though modern Vesnite intellectuals have presented rather more rarefied accounts. The most recent dogmatic pronouncement on transcension was issued by Prophet Yorsephor in 1905, who decreed in a Prophetic Utterance 'that transcension is to be cherished above mere artifice and interest and lesser truth as the great, splendid, and refulgent hope of mankind, whose blazing shadow ever issues forth from the dazzling ruin of the Gates of the World, manifest in all true Knowledge and manifesting all Knowledge at once, never diminished, never distant, the true and eternal freedom by which the intellect of the Savant never dies, which is always close at hand by the magnificent power of truth'.
Apotheosis
Transcension directly from the material world is known as apotheosis. The first to reach apotheosis was the Prophet, who broke the world-gates by attaining it, and it is believed that apotheosis is accompanied by great miraculous events. Official Vaestism has tended not to precisely distinguish historical instances of transcension after death from proper apotheosis, but claims of apotheosis feature relatively frequently in popular cults—thus the 'martyr Interrex' Houb shelKhmus is often considered to have attained apotheosis at the moment of his death during a mistaken submarine assault in 1942.
Quest for the transcension inductor
Certain Vaestic Scholars have argued that it may be possible to artificially induce apotheosis via a so-called 'transcension inductor'. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries in particular, the domestication of electricity, with its mystical associations in Vaestism, spurred a quest to construct an electric machine that could act as a transcension inductor. Despite the public fascination surrounding the idea, it finds little traction in scholarly circles in general, though the possibility of such a device has not been formally excluded. The idea of the transcension inductor did, in any case, serve as a useful symbol for sceptical internalists of the folly of Strong Externalism in attempting to reduce the central Vaestic endeavour to a question of technical artifice, and was accordingly exaggerated in conservative polemics of the period that depicted the possibility of transcension inductors as a cherished principle of Strong Externalism.