Protism

Protism is named for Protas, described as the greatest fid of Thelenes. In a reflection during Apert, an avout recalls Protas’s sequence of upsights—first comparing cloud‑shadows to the clouds that cast them, then noting how a mountain’s apparent shape varies with the viewer’s point of view—and concludes that familiar things are shadows of more perfect things in a higher realm. This insight is stated as the essential doctrine of Protism.

First Appearance and Context

Protism is explicitly invoked when an avout, moving between an extramuros machine hall and the Mynster, frames both places as “shadows” of a higher sacred pattern. The idea is presented not as a new claim but as a received doctrine associated with Protas and understood within the mathic tradition.

Roles/Actions and Affiliations

• Philosophical frame: Used as a lens to interpret correspondences between worldly things and more perfect originals.
• Attribution: Credited to Protas (a fid of Thelenes) through an upsight relating shadows, viewpoints, and unifying ideas.
• Not an order: Protism is treated as doctrine or teaching rather than a formal community or office.

Interpretations and Metatheorics

• Earliest polycosmic framing: In current mathic discussion, Protism is described as the simplest polycosmic view, since it posits two cosmi—our changing world and a higher realm of forms.
• Relation to the HTW: This framing is set alongside the Hylaean Theoric World, with some metatheorists treating classical Protism as one kind of polycosmic theory rather than something entirely separate.
• Paphlagonian line: Readers of Fraa Paphlagon characterize that tradition as acknowledging both a realm of theorical forms and the existence of other cosmi, placing Protism within a broader polycosmic program.

Relationships

• Originates with Protas, identified as the greatest fid of Thelenes.
• In the same scene, a Procian caution labels some analogical thinking as “Halikaarnian,” yet the narrator affirms the applicability of the Protist doctrine to the case at hand. (No formal equivalence or hierarchy among these traditions is asserted.)

Descriptions/Characteristics

• Core claim: Things perceived in the Saeculum can be understood as shadows cast by more perfect forms; apparent changes with perspective are shadows of a single underlying reality.
• Usage: Appears in discourse as a touchstone for recognizing when multiple particulars reflect one higher, unifying idea.

Current Status/Location

In use as a doctrine referenced by avout; no institutional center or leadership is described in the available material.