By Matthew Glick (mglick@unix.infoserve.net) (6 February 1996)
Locked away in the past, the Euthanatos are considered beasts best left undisturbed, (preferably forever while they choke on their last breaths). Yet, in one of the oldest traditions a new flower is growing. Made up of young, inexperienced, newly awakened mages, this group has erupted upon a world in turmoil. . .
To the Virtual Adepts and Hollow Ones, their moniker are the Nice Guys. To the Akashic Brotherhood and Verbena, they are the Hopeful Few. The Celestial Chorus and Order of Hermes use the term Les Enfants Perdu, the lost children. Their Euthanatos brethren often refer to them as the insects. The name they have chosen is the Wheel Turners. Many believe the Order of Hermes is correct -- that they are lost children. They could be in need of a great deal of guidance, lest a catastrophe occurs. Or maybe, as a small but growing number of voices are responding, these are the ones we should be guided by.
Regardless, so many questions still need answering. Why does this group exist? Where did it come from? Are they really as new a group as most people believe? Will their ideals be the light to a new path for Ascension, or guiding signs to a steepest Descension?
The Wheel Turners are the new radical wing of the Euthanatos. There are 45 Turners scattered around the world. No member is older than 30. Few are older than 25. These youths come from a variety of sources. A few are orphans who have found a spiritual home in this group. Many are apprentices whom Awakened normally, and then have joined this group out of disgust with the traditional Euthanatos activities and beliefs.
A smattering of members Awoke when they traveled to the Underworld. These mages have experienced the Near Death Experience requisite of most Euthanatos, yet Awakening alone seems to have fueled a spiritual independence from the tradition more reminiscent of the Hollow Ones than normal tradition mages. Jonathan Stein, the founder of the Wheel Turners, Awoke in this manner.
The people I have talked to say there are three things that mark someone as a Wheel Turner rather than simply being a Euthanatos. The first mark is youth. Not one member has practicing magick for more than five years. Jonathan Stein himself has been a mage for less than three years. These observers continue to remark that a young cabal is fine and healthy, but 45 such novices appears rather disturbing.
The second mark is each member's belief in the sacredness of each life. They believe that as mages their place is not to end life, but to help the wheel of life turn smoothly for each individual. Furthermore they believe this applies to everyone, whether they be mage, sleeper, garou, or something else. The result is that the Wheel Turners have sworn not to practice the good death. The only killing allowed is in self-defense.
The third mark is their humility. They believe that the key to their souls is another soul, somewhere out there, and after that, another soul. The Turners are very much aware of their lack of power. It appears not to concern them. Helping another seems to be the limit of their political ambitions. It is almost as if each member took a vow divesting themselves from the gigantic ego most mages posess. This humility arises from the belief that the universe is made of individual people, not grand all-powerful paradigms.
To understand the practices of the Wheel Turners, you must understand one important fact. Regardless of their background, every member's Awakening was dominated by an overpowering fear of Oblivion. In Awakening, whether in a tradition supervised ritual, or by themselves, each Turner has come to understand what life is like, and what part death has in it.
While they were sleepers, this fear of death kept every future member stuck in their lives, leaving them unable to grow as human beings. To the Wheel Turners, helping a person understand that life goes on beyond death is their greatest accomplishment. When a person is freed from this construct they can grow again and once more appreciate life.
And that is what Wheel Turners do. They help people past blocks in their life. From the terror of seemingly inescapable doom that each member knows intimately, to an addiction they can not get over, to a continual inability to commit, Turners help people grow.
To Turners every part of life has its time, and every part is invaluable, but trapping yourself in one part is self-destruction, not of the body, but of the soul. Angela Pinkerton, the group's second member gave an explanation of the group's philosophy:
"Only when we grow do we learn, and only when we learn can we grow. There is no Ascension without maturity. When I stuck with my fear of death, I could not live. I could not grow. I have been a child, and I will be one again, but I will also be a mother and a father, and a grand-parent, and so many other things. That is how the Wheel Turns, all the way to Ascension.
"When there is an artificial construct blocking the process, like an addiction or terror, there is no growth, no learning, only energy sadly wasted. Euthanatos believe in the unmaking of lives. Every life ends, but the soul starts another. It is a cycle. We Wheel Turners believe the unmaking of each part of a life is just as important as the unmaking of the entire life itself. One part ends, but the soul starts another."
Wheel Turners are also well known for their friendliness. If there are discussion groups about magick and Ascension, or any other topic, you will find Wheel Turners leading them all across the world. Their lack of ego and willingness to expose themselves to new ideas has landed at the center of many cities. They feel that all things, ideas and beliefs included, are temporary, and learning about different philosophies is an extremely important part of living. If what a Turner learns results in leaving the Wheel Turners, that's life, and there is nothing wrong with it.
Several times I have been asked about the deep sense of responsibility and commitment the mages carry within them. Most outsiders have stated that their dedication to the sleepers is really the result of a desperation to prove their ideas are indeed workable and constructive. Wheel Turners tend to disagree, yet, are unable to provide an alternative explanation. It seems the members do not seem to know the truth of the matter. Perhaps the clearest explanation lies in the writings of Jonathan Stein.
(Note: the following is an excerpt from Stein's collection of writings, and since it is reportedly a rough draft we are most grateful to Mr. Stein for being able to print them here)
Why do we act the way we do? Those were the exact words Angela Pinkerton uttered two days after Awakening. Over the past two-and-a-half years I have been asking myself that. Why do mages act the way they do? Why do tradition mages act the way they do? Why do Euthanatos act the way they do? Only, that time, when Angela said it, I realized I wanted to know why I acted the way I did. And so did she. Her, and everyone else who has joined the Wheel Turners. I have come to a current conclusion, but, as a note, I am always revising my opinions. I am always trying to figure out what my life is about. By helping other people grow, I grow. I think that my soul is individual but at the same time it is tied to every other soul in existence. I guess I would feel that if everyone could appreciate each part of their lives and each wheel of life that, even if reality was a static as Styrofoam, Ascension would occur.
I think that's why we go out and try to help people. Ascension is all about the soul of the universe, not the reality it is composed of. Every time you help a soul, you help the universe. Bizarre karma?
But you asked why we take it so seriously. It's because we know that nobody else does what we do. We're a little group, and it's the entire planet we are talking about, but you can't just give up. Fate, fortune, and a bunch of other things happened that let us Awakened and get past the fear of death that was blocking our lives. Now, we have to be the intervening piece of fate that helps other people. It's our dues to karma. If you talk to any Turner, he may complain, or treat it like an irritant, but each one of us knows we understand more for it, and we live finer lives because of it.
Yours truly, Jonathan Stein
The history of the Wheel Turners is an extraordinary, but perplexing tale. Despite its brevity, it is quite complex. Yet, no element is as complicated as the founder of the group, Jonathan Stein.
Jonathan grew up an outcast. His shattered self-image led to an inability to succeed academically, something his family prized above anything else. As Jonathan grew older and older, the anxiety that he would end life a failure was leaving him a wreck. This was compounded by a terror of the oblivion of death. He was caught in a catch-22. He was incapable of accomplishing anything, because he was spending all his time worrying if he could accomplish anything.
By the time Jonathan turned 17, he could go on no further. He realized that unless he ended the doubts about death he would be left paralyzed with his anxieties until the day he died. This realization created that rare desperation more often seen in madmen than introspective adolescents.
For the next year and a half, Jonathan's life was dominated by the search for an answer. He spent all his time trying to find out if there was anything beyond death, or if the oblivion he feared so much was inevitably going to swallow and destroy him. For him, there had to be something after death, for the alternative was too horrible to contemplate.
Finally, in May of 1993, Jonathan finally gave up. His exhaustive investigation had left him with nothing concrete. With his last hopes shattered, he died.
Jonathan travelled to the Underworld, and was exposed to the dead spirits. In that instant, the impossible became more than the possible. It became the truth. Just before one of the denizens were about to enslave him, Jonathan was throw back into his body. It seems that Jonathan had altered reality to let him die without dying. Paradox, it seems, corrected the event as quickly as it could.
Upon returning to the mundane side of the gauntlet, Jonathan awoke. It seems his unshakable belief in his fate was due to the scientific evidence presented to him. Science, he had learned from his parents, showed that life ends when you die. Science had said that there was no soul to survive dying. He realized that someone had blatantly manipulated reality so he would believe all that. He also realized he could twist it too, now that he was aware.
The Awakening was detected by Sunyi Karimako, a Japanese Euthanatos, who was visiting Vancouver as a tourist. Seeking out Stein, she found him wandering dazed and confused in the city's main graveyard. Taking him under her wing, she spent several days explaining about the world of the supernatural. After talking to her, Jonathan agreed to became her apprentice. The two quickly travelled to Sunyi's home near Tokyo.
Despite the excellent personal relationship the two shared, Jonathan felt that something was lacking. As time went on, it became evident to both of them that he needed to return to Northa America. After only 5 months, Jonathan left his teacher's home in Japan to return to Vancouver.
Travelling around North America for the next few months, the two met as many people as they could. The two were always happy to explain what they were looking for, and how they spent their time helping people go on with lives. Soon, a third person asked to join them, then a fourth, then as their reputation grew, more and more started petitioning for admittance.
Finally, Jonathan came to the conclusion that this was not just a cabal, but something greater. With that in mind, he returned home to ponder, in peace, what this new group would be like.
It was there that the Wheel Turners adopted their name. It was there that they asked to be treated as a valid camp of the Euthanatos. Discussions went on for three days about the practice of the good death. At the end, the group finally went with a total ban on the practice. It was decided that if it was needed, they would call in someone else. It was also here that the enmity with so much of the rest of the clan started. The tradition's invited observer affair walked out after the Turners decision against the good death. The observer, Jeffrey Randolph, then proceeded to describe the entire group as "little children playing dress-up games."
Also adopted were the symbols of the group. Two particular tarot cards were chosen. The first was Change -- the two of disks, from the Aleister Crowely Thoth deck, and the second card was the Major Arcana # 21 - The Universe, from the same deck.
When Jonathan was sighted again several months later, he was busily planning the next meeting. By this time, the group had grown to 30 members, and various factions, especially the Technocratic Union, were starting to take notice. Wheel Turners started banding together in small groups, constantly on the watch for the next HIT-Mark or Man in Black. Several members disappeared during this time, and were believed dead. Fearing that survivors could be brainwashed or worse, the Vancouver chantry, the group's headquarters, issued a rare order stating that if any Turners had survived they should left alone. Finally in June of '95, all five Turners from San Francisco disappeared. Despite pleas to the contrary, Stein went down there alone to find them.
When the second meeting rolled around, Stein had still not reappeared. The meeting started as planned. This time the Euthanatos sent another observer, Nathaniel Evans. During this meeting, he spoke about the negative response towards the Wheel Turners from the rest of the Euthanatos. The White Band, the faction who believes in saving the corrupt before killing them, had withdrawn its support. There was serious talk amongst the tradition, he said, of bringing in the Freedom Razor, the internal police of the Euthanatos who hunt for the taint of the Nephandi.
Jonathan Stein had never assumed a strong leadership role in the group. Yet, his absence and assumed death at the hands of Technocracy left the group of its political glue. Over the following days, the large house was rife with the politics as little groups of Turners tried to find a solution.
On August 11, four days after the meeting began, Jonathan Stein suddenly returned with the five missing mages of San Francisco. His timing was fortunate, as the Turners were then voting on whether to disperse or not. Many say if Stein had waited a day longer to return, he would have returned to an empty house. The surprise of his return was nothing compared to the explanation of what had happened in San Francisco.
It seems that upon arriving in San Francisco, Stein immediately started his search for his missing colleagues. When he learned they had been captured by the Technocracy, he walked straight into their central office and asked to see their leader. Their reaction was to immediately put him into isolated confinement.
Jonathan Stein spent the following weeks undergoing interrogations and examinations. His captors were highly confused as to why he had risked coming. He refused none of their questions and his interest in their philosophy left them even more perplexed. While Iteration X members insisted on his disintegration, calmer heads prevailed. Finally, a dialogue began between [fill in Technocracy head in source book] and Stein.
The moderates, mostly NWO and Progenitor members, could see very little wrong in what the Wheel Turners were doing. Their almost total preference for coincidental magick meant that they hardly qualified as reality criminals. At the worst, they convinced people that life did not truly end with death. At their best, they helped to make the population happier and reasonable. The San Francisco group decided there was no reason for prosecution if the following conditions were met: That the group only use coincidental magick, and there could never be more than three members living as permanent residents in any city, excepting Vancouver. Following this meeting, the Jonathan Stein and the five other Turners were released unharmed.
The chaos that followed Stein's account left most furniture in pieces. Before the hour was out, three Euthanatos masters had arrived. Nathaniel Evans reportedly went into shock. Due to several Virtual Adepts who had been invited as observers, a common practice of the Wheel Turners, the news was spread around the globe in minutes.
By the end of the night, the situation had reached a legendary proportion. Not since the last Council of 9 meeting had so many magi of repute been present at the same place. Even the Virtual Adept master Dante showed up. After a heated debate, the masters present finally agreed to a course of action. Stein, and his closest councilors, would be taken to Horizon chantry, and be tested for Technocratic taint. If any taint at all was found, their avatars would be destroyed according to the ancient rites of Gilgul. On the stroke of midnight, Jonathan Stein, Angela Pinkerton, and the rest of the first group of Wheel Turners, were taken at gun point by the Freedom Razor. The rest of the Wheel Turners were held at the house under observation. At the same time the house was being set with detonators. Few knew, but the Euthantos masters had decided by themselves that if any taint was found, the entire faction would be killed.
On arriving at Horizon, the Turners were separated for examinations. Stein set out to explore the famous chantry and wandered into the council room. How the magickal locks on the door failed is unknown. When his would-be examiners found him, he was seated at the famous council table, not in the chair reserved for the Euthanatos, but in the seat reserved for envoys. The chair, marked with a strange sigil that appeared a few years ago, is said to be the seat of the tenth sphere. When Jonathan was examined later, the sigil was found engraved on the palm of his right hand. During the examination no evidence of tattooing was found, nor any sign that the Wheel Turner had used Life magick, a sphere he admitted he was mostly ignorant of, to alter his hand.
Residents of Horizon reported many other unusual happenings that day; doors would open and close unexpectedly, the guardian spirits were silent for the entire day, and a blank note book in the library started writing itself. The chaotic collection of symbols of words were totally unrecognizable except for the numerous sigils exactly like the one found on the tenth council chair and the title: The Complete Early History of the Wheel Turners, a Work in Three Parts: Volume One. None of these incidents have yet to be explained, and news of what happened has been almost totally suppressed.
When no trace of taint or mind control was found in the Wheel Turners, the Euthanatos masters were finally pressured into releasing the group. The Turners rejoined their colleaugues at Stein's home the following afternoon. Within an hour the faction dispered along with the observers. Since then, Jonathan Stein has sent Angela Pinkerton on a mission of goodwill to the other traditions. He also spent a few months once again travelling North America, explaining what he could about what happened at Horizon chantry, as well as reminding his fellows that their primary priorities were themselves and the sleepers, not politics. These past few months have also seen the rise of Wheel Turners who were not part of the first group of members. Chief among these are Julian Stephenson from Chicago, and Melissa Green from Toronto. They are actively involved in the internal politics of the faction, and their recognition and support are growing.
In December, Jonathan Stein returned to Vancouver for the funeral of his grandmother who died in a spectacular car crash. Oddly, her body was never recovered from the wreckage. That he dearly loved her was well known, and there was much speculation as to whether the crash was an accident, or an attack on him. Shortly after the funeral, Stein started writing on his experiences as a mage, and continues to this day.
As of mid-January, 1996, the Wheel Turners stood at 45 members and continue to grow furiously with few signs of slowing. The oddest thing to note is the sigil found on Stein's hand has been turning up on more and more members. No one has any idea how it appears or what it means. All that is known is the growing unease of the faction towards the sigil and what it may ultimately forbode.
Still, for now, the days are peaceful. Many Wheel Turners are taking this time to catch their breaths and to relax a little. There is talk of an expedition to the Umbra, and a few are even touring the continent, getting to know everyone, much like Jonathan Stein and Angela Pinkerton did for almost two years. The main issue on each member's mind is their future. Whereever they congregate, members are busy trying to find a viable solution in what is sure to be a very confusing situation. And, all signs are indicating that this political mess is soon approaching.