Order of SALIGIA
The Order of SALIGIA is a cult that was established in the New Tens. They mainly operate in the Tri-City Area of the state of Washington, though they claim to have followers throughout the Western Seaboard. Their name is derived from the acronym for the Latin names for the seven deadly sins: superbia, avaritia, luxuria, invidia, gula, ira, and acedia (pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth, respectively). As the name suggests, it preaches the free practice of every action deemed a sin in order to break free from a world ruled by a cruel creator deity. They were originally a small group with barely any influence, but after the events of the Midnight Sun incident, they have gained traction and influence within the criminal underworld.
Mythology & Lore
The beliefs of the Order of SALIGIA are heavily steeped in Cainite Gnosticism. They believe that the God of the Bible is in actuality the Demiurge--a cruel, uncaring, and despotic deity that is responsible for the creation of the material world--and anyone and everyone who opposes him are the true heroes. To this end, they venerate those in the Old Testament who went against Him, including the Pharaoh, Esau, Korah, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, and most of all Cain. They also believed Judas to be not the betrayer of Christ, but the only one of his disciples who knew the truth about the nature of God.
Cosmological Views
According to most Gnostic beliefs, the One Absolute God is known as the Monad, the true "good" God and the source of the Pleroma (the totality of all divine powers). Within the Pleroma are various minor deities called Aeons. The lowest Aeon on the proverbial ladder, a female entity named Sophia, fell out of communion with the rest of the deities and became trapped in the primordial material universe. From the matter that solidified out of Sophia's divine essence, an evil false god was born, known as the Demiurge or Yaldabaoth. The Demiurge then created the physical universe, isolated from the higher dimensions above, and elected himself ruler. The reason why evil and suffering exist in the world is because it's actually governed by this flawed Demiurge who mistakenly believes himself to be the absolute God and demands arrogantly to be worshiped as such.
Tenets of Faith
The Order of SALIGIA teaches that the only way to escape the grasp of the evil Demiurge is to transcend the material plane, and the best way to achieve this transcendence is to do everything in their power to subvert His tenets (i.e. the laws of the Old Testament). This basically amounts to committing any and every sin and vile action one can. The belief is that indulgence in sin is the key to salvation because since the material body is inherently evil, one must defile it through immoral activity in order to properly break free from it.
Ethics
SALIGIA's practices of faith essentially embody the Macbeth quote: "Fair is foul and foul is fair." According to the Order's tenets, there is no such thing as "sin," only actions that have been deemed "sinful" in the eyes of the Demiurge, and the worst thing a person can be is ignorant of the true nature of the world. As such, its followers are encouraged to not shrink away from vileness, but to embrace and deliberately practice it in order to achieve salvation. Likewise, practicing what the Demiurge has deemed as "virtue" only feeds into and strengthens His power and influence and is considered anathema by the Order.
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