Whisperers

Summary

A loosely affiliated group of soothsayers and mystics, centered around the psychedelic consumption of a special set of teas. Most Whisperers work alone or in small groups of two or three. They offer services for profit to read the current situation and futures of paying clients, in a similar manner to fortune tellers today. Most people consider Whisperers to be an amusing and silly group that's half bunk and half spooky. Some people, particularly more ardent Panpsychists, swear by Whisperers and use them frequently to make decisions, while some hardcore Objectivists think of them as con-artists. However, every thinks that drinking too much Whisper Tea is dangerous to the mind and body, and long-time Whisperers are said to suffer neurological effects and become disconnected from reality. Whisperers can be found in all corners of Ecumene, usually in small shops where they sell their wares alongside other Panpsychist objects.

Beliefs

Whisperers conduct their divinations by drinking Whisper Teas, a drink they concoct based on the divination they are about to do. The tea induces a vision which cause the Whisperer to temporary hallucinate and act strangely for anywhere between 15 minutes and an hour. They think of this as a communication with a channel that the tea opens, and they call this practice "whispering" to the tea, thus the name. Whisperers then give the questioner an interpretation of what they saw, often not explaining the details of the vision and instead giving an overview of the meaning. This entire experience is generally couched in rituals designed to get both the questioner and the Whisperer in the right state of mind for the experience.
Visions received during tea ingestion are said to be vivid and all-encompassing. The Whisperer is brought into an entirely different world akin to a dream, and then shown a number of things. The Whisperer can interact with things in the vision, and often is pulled to manipulate objects or travel to different places in the real world. However, all the visions are highly symbolic and vague, and so a Whisperer's skill is not just knowing how to make a right tea for a question, but how to understand the vision they have so as to answer the questions of their clients. While others can make or use Whisper Teas, Whisperers frown on amateur use, usually claiming that without proper training, tea drinkers can't have a conversation (i.e. whisper) with the vision properly and have no idea how to interpret it.
What causes the tea to give the visions is up to individual opinion. Most Whisperers are Panpsychist and think that by taking their teas, they are becoming attuned to the conscious communications of nature around them, which gives them wisdom. The specific consciousnesses they communicate with are controlled by the components of the tea they drink. But there are many different takes here. There are Objectivist Whisperers who see the teas as a new form of perception of reality, and Umbralist Whisperers who think they are communicating with Curians. There's a mutual tolerance among Whisperers about what anyone thinks the truth of the teas is; the camaraderie between Whisperers is more about passing skills and acquired knowledge and sharing business and survival tips.

History & Organization

As more spoils returned from Umbra after the chaos of the Dobby Affair ended, new plants started to arrive in Ecumene, and people began to experiment with those plants. During the period before the Great Storm, new concoctions arose in different places. Some of this lead to changes to food and drink, and the seeds of new medicine were formed, but the most direct result was the propagation of desmodium figutor, a colorful small shrub that grew as a weed around the base of certain trees. The proto-fruit that form after flowering could be ground up as a psychedelic, and a number of people began to pop up who claimed that they were getting prophetic visions from teas made from these seeds.
In 1849, one of these prophets warned that she had a vision of the island cut off from the rest of the world and submerged in water. Six months later, the Great Storm hit, and the public got very interested in these teas. The prophet, Iralia Faraldo, said that a tea she brewed let her speak to the consciousness of Bailen Island (Iralia was an ardent Panpsychist and generally noted spiritualist in the Italian ghetto) and when she whispered to it, it gave up its secrets. The teas became called Whisper Teas, and the people who drank them became Whisperers. In the Reconstruction, Whisperers started to congregate and share information, and the art of Whispering was born.
Over the decades, Whispering has waxed and waned in popularity, but it's been a steady presence in Ecumene. Whisperers started experimenting with more teas and came up with largely idiosyncratic formulas of tinctures and infusions that led to different visions. The original Panpsychist focus of Faraldo remained the dominant strain of philosophy, but as Objectivism and Umbralism rose, groups of Whisperers started to go their own ways. Whisperers are largely independent or in small groups, so divergent belief never bothered them. Whispering is currently rising in popularity as Americans interested in spiritualism have been spending more time in Ecumene, and as more university students flirt with deep Panpsychist practices.
Most Whisperers apprentice with a current Whisperer to learn the trade. In a lot of cases, this is passed down in families, with "gifted" children learning the practice from a parent. Unlike most fields in Ecumune, Whisperers tend to be women, although men do have practices. It's not hard for new people to get involved, though. Any competent flora-pharmacist knows how to make a basic Whisper Tea, and there's no certification for prophecy, so all you have to do is hang a Whisper sign (using four lines, two curled up and two curled down, representing wind) over your door and start taking people in.
Whisperers have a reputation of going mad from the practice. All of this is anecdotal, but the rumor is that long time Whisperers start to lose the ability to project their speech, and that their movements become stiffer. Losing strength in one's grip is said to be the early sign of harm. Eventually, Whisperers are said to have trances even without the teas, without any warning. All of this is considered to be chronic effects of Whispering; no one expects one tea to hurt you, but anyone who does this for a living is considered to be living dangerously.

Key Details

Founded: First appeared in the post-Dobby Affair period between 1847-1850
Leadership: No central leadership
Headquarters: No proper headquarters
Membership: Several dozen very public members, with a couple hundred smaller practitioners. Many more informal amateurs. Ornella Crespi is a respected member in high-class circles.
Affliations: Mystically inclined people and more spiritual Panpsychists, and lots of overlap with Curians

Type

Secret, Occult