ANDERS MAGE PAGE 2.0

Prehistory & the Age of Vikings

Sweden has never been a real center for magick. Like most other parts of the world there have been mages but they have been few and far between. Probably the oldest mages were groups like the Dreamspeakers and Verbena, helping the people survive the harsh climate in the north, protecting them from the unknown and helping with the crops, fishing and hunting. It was a very utilitarian magick, with more practical uses than metaphysical. While the mages in the civilized lands in the south were already creating great philosophical systems and struggling to bring their Ascension to their peoples, the northern mages had to bargain with the spirits to obtain food and used their magick to protect their people from wild animals and worse.

The worship of the old gods seems to have been influenced by the Verbena. During the ceremonies at the temple of Uppsala animals and thralls were hanged in great oaks and the priests sprinkled the idols of the gods with the blood from the sacrifices. Afterward everybody celebrated to ensure continued fertility and good crops.

During this time some kinds of magic were used by people on a rather regular basis, almost like we use technology today. The magic was relatively minor and often of protective nature to protect against spirits, the faeries, the dead, injuries, accidents and bad luck. The runic alphabet was regarded as magical and to be able to inscribe runes was regarded as a kind of magic. Another type of magic was the galders, songs sung in a high pitched voice. All in all, minor magic seems to have been quite common, supported by the Verbena.

In the northern region of Scandinavia the Lapps lived. They were a nomadic people of reindeer herders. Their shamans, the nojds, were reputed to be both powerful and dangerous. While most magic was regarded as rather acceptable by the Vikings ("A brave man with a good sword can take tackle most things - including magic"), the magick of the Lapps was regarded with suspicion and fear.

Christianity & the Middle Ages

In 829 AD a monk named Ansgar arrived in Sweden. He was sent out by Emperor Ludwig to convert the Vikings of Sweden to Christianity (perhaps to lessen their raids and make them more amenable to trade). The attempt failed but soon other missionaries arrived. The Celestial Chorus were probably among them and a struggle ensued between the pagan Verbena and the Christian Choristers. The struggle continued for several centuries but Christianity slowly became the religion of the kings and leaders and later the rest of the inhabitants. Both groups adapted to each other and it seems the Verbena went underground and continued their activities with support from the people, while the Choristers left them and their beliefs more or less alone.

During the Middle Ages Sweden became more unified. A few small crusades were sent out against the pagans in the East, with dubious religious but rather good economic success and Finland became a part of Sweden. Sweden slowly became more and more a part of the rest of Christendom and the catholic hierarchy become as influential as it is in the rest of Europe. However, the Verbena still exist in secret, supporting the common people against the nobility. In the deep forests the faeries and other beings hold sway.

Gustaf Vasa & the Reformation

During the 14th century Sweden and Denmark became more and more intertwined in their politics, both as enemies and as friends. In 1389, Queen Margareta became the queen of a union of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The German merchants of the Hansa disliked this union, since it could control the trade through the Baltic sea completely and did their best to disrupt it. Inside the union there were forces which wanted to break it up and several uprisings took place. When king Christian II ordered the Stockholm Bloodbath in 1520 to crush the last members of one of the most successful revolts, he only fuelled the hatred against the union both among the general populace and the nobility. A young nobleman, Gustaf Eriksson Vasa, incited a general uprising against the unionists.

During the time, on the continent the Technomancers had emerged. Using the invention of the printing press they had spread their technology far and wide and had started the Reformation to finally crush the power of the Celestial Chorus. Some Technomancers had taken control over the emerging trading houses and had become interested in the backward Sweden. When Gustaf Vasa asked the merchants of Lübeck for help, they gave him both economic and military support. They also sent one or two technomancers to Sweden. With their helpm, Gustaf Vasa succeeded in becoming king of Sweden in 1523. One of the technomancers, Olaus Petri, an ex-chorister who had been converted by Luther, had been present in Sweden a few years and quickly got the ear of the king.

The Reformation quickly and efficiently gave the king much control over the Church and the technomancers silently and ruthlessly destroyed the power-base of the Celestial Chorus without anybody noticing. Gustaf Vasa also began to tie the power closer to the king and his bureaucracy, which led to a centralized power in Stockholm. He actually imported administrators from Germany and there were doubtless several additional technomancers among them. One, Georg Norman, travelled around in some provinces, appointed and deposed local administration, interrogated priests, confiscated relics, taxes and artworks, apparently to root out influences of the Chorus.

After the death of Gustaf Vasa followed a period where the remaining Choristers and different factions of technomancers fought each other. They manipulated different nobles and political factions, sometimes using rather heavy-handed methods (which perhaps contributed to the eventual insanity of Erik XIV, the eldest son of Gustaf Vasa). The technomancers managed to create a state-controlled church in 1592 but the Choristers controlled the new king Sigismund who was Catholic.

The Technocracy managed to quickly outmaneuver him and forced him into exile and installed Duke Karl Vasa, the youngest son of Gustaf Vasa, as king instead. Karl IX turned out to be completely loyal to the technomantic cause and the Choristers' political power was finally destroyed completely. The new king continued the efforts of his father and encouraged the development of new technology and the immigration of the Vallons, Dutch experts on metallurgy. Among them a few pre-Iteration X members arrived and started their work. Under Karl IX, Swedish control and taxation expanded northward and the Lapps were persecuted by the Church and state. The Church confiscated their magic drums and did its best to convert them to Christianity and destroy all pagan elements in their culture. Thus the Technocracy managed to almost destroy the Dreamspeakers of the north.

Sweden as a Local Power

On the continent the 30 year war erupted in 1618, when the Order of Hermes and the Celestial Chorus finally united against the Technocratic threat of the Reformation. The technomancer controlled Protestants in Germany suffered setbacks and the Technocracy in Sweden decided to help them. King Gustaf II Adolf quickly captured several important cities in northern Germany and Poland. With him he had Axel Oxenstierna, quite possibly one of the highest ranking and most influential technomancers in Sweden at the time. He subtly manipulated the king and led the Swedish technomancers in the war. On the opposing side was the Celestial Chorus in the Church, Order of Hermes who controlled nobles and the Verbena, who has reacted to the technomantic invasion and general destruction of the land. Finally, after a long series of Swedish victories, the king is killed by the Verbena in 1632. During the Battle of Lützen, they spread thick fog and used their magick to lure the king away from his army (where the technomancers could protect him) and killed him. However, the Verbena had overrated the importance of the king and it did not disturb the plans of the technomancers very much. In 1635 Oxenstierna negotiated personally with Cardinal Richelieu and Sweden was yielded several German cities and substantial revenues in exchange for a withdrawal. During the time, the war degenerated into plundering and chaos, as the different factions fought each other. Old allies turned on each other and the union between the Traditions dissolved.

The only daughter of Gustaf II Adolf, Christina, was too young to be crowned after his death and Oxenstierna appointed a committee to rule Sweden in her place. In practice, the technomancers gained total power and Oxenstierna controlled them. Another important technomancer at this time was the wealthy Dutch merchant Louis de Geer, who in 1627 arrived in Sweden. He was probably the representative of the Syndicate and even before he arrived in Sweden he had substantial control over the economy. He was given control over the production of weapons and the mining industry by the Technocracy. Under his direction the Vallons modernized it and made the Swedish iron production extremely profitable.

Queen Christina turned out to be interested in art and science. She summoned many learned men, philosophers and artists to her court. Some of them may have been summoned by the ruling technomancers. Among them was René Descartes, the French Philosopher and a probable Technomancer. At first he was unwilling to go but the queen threatened him and he finally accepted her offer and travelled to Sweden. After a short time in the country he developed pneumonia and died. The event is shrouded in mystery. Why did the queen or technomancers summon him? And why was he unwilling to go? Perhaps Descartes had angered the Swedish Technocracy in some way. Perhaps somebody else killed him or it was just a coincidence.

How much did Queen Christina really know? It is quite possible that she knew something about what was really going on and who the real rulers were. She seems to have decided that she didn't want to be the figurehead of the Technocracy, and in 1654 she surprisingly abdicated, converted to Catholicism and emigrated to Rome. The Technocracy didn't do anything. It just installed her cousin Karl X on the throne and went on with its ambitions to create a Great Sweden. However, this meets with more and more opposition from other nations (and presumably their technomancers).

During this time the witch-hunts reached their climax. Apparently the Technocracy was doing its best to destroy any remaining Verbenas and any contact with the faerie. In 1676 there was a veritable witchhunt-epidemic in Stockholm. However, Doctor Urban Hiärne, a hermetic mage or technomancer, started to defend the alleged witches and show how many testimonies against them were made up. The result was that the judges started to reconsider and soon the witch-hunt ended. Why Hiärne defended the alleged witches is unknown. One theory is that he made a deal with the Verbena and in exchange received some of their medical secrets. His tincture "Hiärnes Droppar" was rumoured to cure most diseases and halt ageing.

During the expansion of Sweden the finances of the state became worse and worse, trade and farming shrunk and the Syndicate became more and more opposed to continued expansion. But the New World Order wanted to make Sweden into a great military power to control northern Europe and finally crush all opposition directly. The Swedish Technocracy became divided between the expansionist faction, led by the New World Order, who wanted to continue their dream of "Greater Sweden", and the other faction, led by the Syndicate, who wanted to create a more stable system. At first they just quarrelled about it but later the struggle became more violent. Shortly after the death of king Karl XI, the royal palace (probably housing the central New World Order) was destroyed in a fire. Other, more subtle means were used as the factions battled each other while on the surface were still cordial. The expansionist supported king Karl XII in his war against Russia and initially it worked quite well. But the expansionists, trying to prove themselves, overextended themselves (possibly this was even supported by the Syndicate, which controlled the supply lines and the Progenitors, who spread diseases). After the catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Poltava in 1709 they started to loose control and their "Greater Sweden" crumbled. Finally, in 1718 at the Siege of Fredriksten, the king was killed by a bullet (which may or may not have been fired by a Swede). The expansionists had been totally defeated and the more liberal groups in the Technocracy gained power.

"The Age of Freedom" & King Gustaf III

After the defeat of the New World Order, the Syndicate gained power. They made sure the power of the regent was diminished, to minimise the risk of anybody using him or her as the expansionists did. They put the power into the parliament, which they controlled. Sweden became a democracy, at least on paper.

During this period trade started to flourish, and the technologically and scientifically inclined conventions like Iteration X and the Progenitors started to work seriously. During this time the Sons of Ether began to grow, closely allied to the conventions. Two important Sons of Ether, Christoffer Polhem and Emanuel Swedenborg started to tame the rivers of Sweden and developed new methods for mining. Swedenborg, however, turned out to be a bit too unorthodox and after starting to believe in spirits he was forced into exile and died. This led to a schism among the Sons, which split into the School of Polhem which was loyal to the Technocracy, and the School of Swedenborg which opposed or ignored them.

Another very important technomancer was Carl von Linné, a Progenitor who developed a classification system for plants and animals, turning biology into an exact science. He surrounded himself with his students, who he sent out in the world to catalogue every species. He, and many of his students, have influenced biology immensely, turning it into the right direction for the Progenitors.

The New World Order had not given up their plans of creating a strong central power directly under their control, as opposed to the polycracy the Syndicate had created. In 1772 king Gustaf III, supported by the NWO seized power in a bloodless coup d'état, and reinstalled monarchy. The new regime was on the surface quite liberal but underneath the NWO had almost total power. They tried to bring Sweden closer to the rest of Europe, especially France. They imported French culture and thinking and started to spread the thinking of the enlightenment against the Traditions. However, the king was killed by an assassination in 1792 and the external power-structure of the NWO collapsed. This time it was probably the Traditions who were behind the assassination, thinking that by removing the King they would break the power of the Technocracy for good. This was only half successful, as the Syndicate started to gain power, but it created a short breathing space for the Traditions.

The Traditions did their best to gain political power. Gustav IV Adolf, the son of the king, was not yet old enough to become king, so his uncle Karl became regent. The Rosicrucians had already approached him discreetly and made him interested in the occult sciences and freemasonry through their man Reuterholm, one of their acolytes. They hoped to use the power structure the Technocracy had created and their ruler to gain control over the nation and then reshape it. However, the Traditions quickly found out the hard way that they were complete novices in real politics, that the people disliked Karl and his assistant Reuterholm and that their man turned out to be a rather weak leader. There was more to running a nation than just controlling the ruler. In 1796 Gustav IV Adolf became king and the Traditions lost their feeble power base completely.

The chaos behind the scenes was aggravated by the chaos caused by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars on the continent. The Technocracy began reshaping Europe on a large scale and their orders had to be obeyed by the local administrations. As a part of the New World Order long-range plan to create a powerful, centralized Russia, the Swedish technocracy had to allow Sweden to lose Finland to Russia in 1808. It became apparent that the Swedish Technocracy was now in the minor league. The Syndicate and New World Order quarrelled. These problems, coupled with the economic crisis (caused by the wars and manipulations of the Syndicate), led to a bloodless coup, a few forced abdications and a few "accidents" and killings to a new form of government. The Syndicate and New World order finally settled their differences, made an easily controllable former French military man king and started to restore their work. They started the industrialization process, began to build a powerful infrastructure and decreased the power of the kings, to avoid the possibility of any more Tradition attempts to subvert their power.

The Industrial Revolution

During the 19th century the Technocracy started to reshape Sweden completely, using industrialism as a cover. They began by building channels, and the Gëta-channel project was the crowning achievement in this phase. It connected the eastern and western parts of Sweden, giving some economic and military advantages. It also spread the knowledge of modern technology and management to the people, thus laying the foundations of more progress. The railroads became the cornerstone of the development. By building railroads, they brought the different parts of Sweden closer together, thus starting to remove differences between them. They also neatly replaced the natural ley-lines with more efficient ones, leading straight to Stockholm and other large cities. The fey became hindered by the web of iron and around the railroads new communities grew up, designed completely by the Technocracy. By developing the timber and mining-industry, they could spread their technology even in the more backward regions. By making the population grow, they forced people into the cities and the industry, increasing the numbers of believers in their reality.

They also slowly moved Sweden towards democracy, since it was the best way to make sure that no troublesome individuals could ever interfere with the power-structure. The Traditions seemed do be permanently defeated, except maybe the attempts of the Celestial Chorus to start religious revivals. During this time the Syndicate, School of Polhem and New World Order cooperated perfectly. It was a time for optimism and dreams for the Technocracy.

The Social Movements and the People's Home

Around the end of the century the Technocracy began to realize that the opposition was still active, not only from the Traditions but now also from concerned Sleepers. Their sometimes rather heavy-handed methods and the quick changes caused social upheavals and instability. Urbanization caused epidemics, poverty and social chaos. The workers were beginning to organize themselves into unions in opposition of their employers.

This was in fact expected by some of the more farsighted groups, who planned to use it. People had already started to organize themselves into religious or political movements, the temperance movement, the popular literacy movement or workers unions. A group within the New World Order, the Social Engineers, started manipulating things and effectively controlled the different movements. By playing them off each other, encouraging some of them, disrupting others and by rewarding those groups which suited their needs with success and social change, they made more people than in any other country group themselves into various organizations pressuring for different changes. The Sleepers learned their lesson and knew that to change society they had to organize themselves, single individuals were simply too powerless against the state, corporations and other organizations. The Social Engineers removed people from politics and replaced them with bureaucracies.

The Social Engineers, and thus the whole New World Order, gained tremendous power through this. The Traditions lost control over their organizations and found that their ideals became subverted by the Technocracy. For some reason the New World Order decided to end the union between Sweden and Norway (probably because they wanted a more efficient local organization instead of the clumsy union bureaucracy) and in 1905 Norway seceded from Sweden without any problems — a demonstration of the power and control of the Social Engineers. By controlling the more and more powerful unions and the other groups, they had a stranglehold on the economy. During the same time the Syndicate began to loose its control and the Depression was a serious blow to their prestige on an international scale.

The Social Engineers had made careful plans and by manipulating the masses they controlled the elections. As their "figurehead" in politics, they chose the Social Democratic Party, in the beginning a small extreme leftist group that had grown under their control into a large, moderately leftist organization with strong ties to the unions. They decided to bring it into power and it became the largest party in the elections of 1911. By carefully manipulating the other parties, the Engineers made sure it stayed in power and the political situation became stable. In 1938 the organisations of the unions and the employers signed the Saltsjöbaden treaty, signifying that the Social Engineers now controlled the economy together with the Syndicate.

The Second World War was a great boost for the NWO across the world and in Sweden it gave the Social Engineers the chance to start their greatest project. During the War Sweden remained neutral and the political climate of nationalism, cooperation and planning for the needs of the people, suited them perfectly. Their goal was to completely restructure Sweden into a perfect state, where the government and its associated organizations protected, helped and controlled the citizens completely. "Folkhemmet", "The Home of the People" became their slogan and they started to enthusiastically work on their project, forcing all of the other conventions to help. They created a vast web of administration overseeing, helping and planning for every possible aspect of society. Central computers would control and monitor the population, using their personal numbers for easy retrieval. Unemployment, poverty and maladjustment became problems to be solved like any other optimization problem. Technological, social and economical progress became the main goals during the 50's and remained so until the beginning of the 80's.

The End of the Dream?

The work of the Social Engineers began to first show signs of instability in the 70's, when radical groups outside of their control began to grow at an alarming rate. They quickly absorbed the environmentalists, feminists and radicals into their framework, simply turning them into parts of their network of organizations or political parties, but the Engineers began to worry about possible flaws in their structure. At the same time some of the Traditions began to expand their influence again, especially the Verbena, Cult of Ecstasy and Orphans. During a long time the Syndicate had helped create the dream of the Social Engineers but now it began to chafe under their administration and their more and more repressive means.

In 1986 the prime minister, Olof Palme, was assassinated on Sveavägen, the main ley-line of Stockholm. The killer was never caught, nor was there any obvious motive. The massive shock this caused made the safe reality the Social Engineers had carefully built over the years start to crumble at an alarming rate. Suddenly people started to notice problems, inefficiencies and lies around them. The Syndicate sprang into action and used the temporary confusion of the New World Order to regain much power, suddenly becoming equally strong as the Social Engineers. Who was behind the murder is still unknown, it might have been the Syndicate, the Traditions or just some Sleepers.

For the moment the ongoing struggle between the crumbling Social Engineers and the ruthless Syndicate is undecided. The economic crisis is used by both groups, as the Syndicate promises prosperity and economic growth, while the Engineers promise security and protection. At the same time some of the more conservative groups in the New World Order are gaining power from the chaos. People feel insecure and threatened, and demand protection from violence and crime. The rise of racism and violence has helped them to increase the number of police, to monitor suspicious people and to place surveillance in public places. At the same time the Syndicate is escaping from the control of the Social Engineers, using industry as their tool of pressuring the government.

Some Notes

I use the names of the Traditions rather loosely, since many of them have changed substantially. The "New World Order" of the 1600's had vastly different views, methods and goals than the NWO today, although they are clearly linked by their history and their ideology of creating strong states controlling their citizens.

Much of the secret planning behind the curtains described here is of course guesswork and theory. There is very little evidence left of Awakened activity but those knowledgeable enough can probably see the traces for themselves.