Megapolisomancy

The Occult Science of Megapolisomancy

According to De Castries, excessively large cities pose a clear danger to the people living in and near them by allowing mass quantities of certain substances (city-stuff) to accumulate, which in turn draw the attention of paramental forces. Through the manipulation of the paramental forces, a megapolisomancer could predict and alter the future.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"The electro-mephitic city-stuff whereof I speak has potencies for achieving vast effects at distant times and localities, even in the far future and on other orbs, but of the manipulations required for the production and control of such I do not intend to discourse in these pages." - De Castries

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

While large cities have always been present, he argued that the future would become vastly more dangerous as the number of megapolitan areas skyrocketed.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"At any particular time of history there have always been one or two cities of the monstrous sort -- viz., Babel or Babylon, Ur-Lhassa, , Syracuse, Rome, Samarkand, Tenochtitlan, Peking -- but we live in the Megapolitan (or Necropolitan) Age, when such disastrous blights are manifold and threaten to conjoin and enshroud the world with funebral yet multipotent city-stuff. We need a Black Pythagoras to spy out the evil lay of our monstrous cities and their foul shrieking songs, even as the White Pythagoras spied out the lay of the heavenly spheres and their crystalline symphonies, two and a half millennia ago." - De Castries

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

De Castries even goes so far as to hint that practitioners could extend their own lives by predicting and manipulating the paramental forces present in cities, but only at a significant cost: "Since we modern city-men already dwell in tombs, inured after a fashion to mortality, the possibility arises of the indefinite prolongation of this life-in-death. Yet, although quite practicable, it would be a most morbid and dejected existence, without vitality or even thought, but only paramentation, our chief companions paramental entities of origin more vicious than spiders or weasels."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Neo-Pythagorean Metageometry

The key to Megapolisomancy apparently lies in the construction of the city itself, dependent upon such things as diagonal streets, fulcrums based on the placement of extremely tall buildings, and other geographical calculations, referred to by De Castries as Neo-Pythagorean metageometry, most of which De Castries did not include in Megapolisomancy, but rather in his mysterious Grand Cipher.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Little is known about the actual math involved in megapolisomancy. It is known that part of the science involved calculating the placement of large buildings as weights which could then be used, in combination with placing certain sigils at other locations, as levers to move a fulcrum with which to focus paramental attention.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It may be significant that the number of sigils in the Grand Cipher equals the number of faces of all of the five Pythagorean or Platonic solids, but no direct link is explained. Given his call for a "Black Pythagoras," however, a connection seems likely.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Paramentals

Paramentals are the elemental spirits of inanimate forces. It is unclear whether they are drawn to cities because of the large quantities of "city-stuff" or created by them. They are generally brown, with eyeless triangular faces and long chins that taper to snouts. when manifesting, they draw their physical substance from the materials nearby.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Paramental entities are quite hostile to those unlucky enough to draw their attention, "about midway in nature between the atomic bomb and the archetypes of the collective unconscious."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Protections Against Paramentals

According to Leiber, only three defenses exist versus paramentals:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• silver
• abstract designs, and
• stars, specifically pentagrams.

However, these defenses appear to be only marginally effective.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~