Null Mysteriis
Everything has a rational explanation: it’s just that scientists haven’t got around to explaining
some things yet. The paranormal and the supernatural are just phantoms — all just normal, natural
phenomena that haven’t yet been observed enough for anyone to make sense of them.
Agree with that? You’re on the same page as Null Mysteriis. The organization’s been diligently
working on explaining anomalies since the day Jean-Pierre Brattel walked out of a Parisian Theosophical
Society meeting in 1893. The Theosophists’ original intent had been to apply the most
rigorous standards of Victorian science to the claims of religion; Brattel found this fascinating, only
to discover that in practice, the Theosophists were really just another new religious movement,
one of dozens. After a few meetings full of messianic prophecies, hidden brotherhoods of
Ancient Ascended Masters and suspect tales of rather convenient reincarnations, Brattel
decided he had enough. It just wasn’t scientifi c enough. On the other hand, he felt
the rationalists discounted out of hand the possibility that there might be things yet
unexplained, and that science had not yet found every law of creation. He saw a
need for a group to scientifi cally examine things that are as yet, beyond science.
He wasn’t alone. By the beginning of the Great War, his brainchild, Null Mysteriis
(an abbreviation of the Latin Nullum Mysteriis Processit: very loosely “out
of the unexplained comes nothing”), had several hundred members across
Europe and North America. The tragic turn taken by the fi rst half of the
20th century wiped out whole groups, and although Null Mysteriis, the selfstyled
Organization for the Rational Assessment of the Supernatural, survives
into the present day, it’s only since the 1970s that its membership has
been anything like that of its turn-of-the-century heyday.
They’re hobbyists. Apart from a few paid offi ce staff in Null Mysteriis’
world headquarters, situated in London since 1941, hardly anyone in the compact gets
any money out of it. Anyone can join, but the pittance requested for membership every
year pays for the admin staff’s salaries, a monthly newsletter, a yearbook and maintenance
on the organization’s various clubhouses. A “hunter” attached to Null Mysteriis
usually has a day job, often a fairly well qualifi ed and academically adept day job. Null
Mysteriis’ members include zoologists, physicists, psychologists, psychiatrists, consultant
doctors, chemists, sociologists and anthropologists, all of whom have minds
open enough to use methods that conventional science holds in suspicion to investigate
things it won’t even consider.
They look at anything that qualifi es as anomalous: UFO sightings and cases
of reincarnation, cases of the Stigmata and cryptozoological anomalies. And more
often than not, they investigate monsters. An alleged werewolf rampages across a
shopping center and hardly anyone admits to having seen it: see that conservatively
dressed woman who’s collecting blood and hair samples from the tiles and
depositing them in test tubes? She’s with Null Mysteriis.
A case of alleged demon possession ends in murder and suicide. That man in
the tweed jacket taking pictures of the house where it all happened with a Kirlian
camera? Null Mysteriis.
A serial killer takes each victim in an impossible fashion. Who’s that quiet
young man with the oddly shaped meter and the tape measure, who goes to
each murder site after the police have cleaned up? He’s from Null Mysteriis.
If Null Mysteriis has a failing, it’s that the often august
people who comprise the lion’s share of its membership make
the very common error of considering themselves expert in
every fi eld because of their undeniable expertise in one. Null
Mysteriis’ meetings can be fraught affairs, as physicists start
holding forth on evolution and biologists start making pronouncements
about psychology and ideology.
The problem’s compounded by the fact that Null Mysteriis is
currently in the middle of a schism of sorts. The current General
Secretary, Scottish astrophysicist Alexander Watt, is a dyed in-thewool
rationalist who holds that the supernatural is like quantum
physics: it’s something that merits scientifi c study, but in a cautious,
tentative, sensible sort of way. On the other hand, Vincent
Fielding, the Treasurer, is a charismatic psychiatrist who holds an
almost gurulike fascination for many members of Null Mysteriis.
He’s stood against Prof. Watt for the post of General Secretary
three years running now, but so far hasn’t been elected. If, however,
Fielding gets in this year, the winds of change are likely to blow
hard. Fielding advocates much more aggressive fi eldwork and the
use of techniques that Watt dismisses as “pseudoscience”: hypnotic
past-life regressions, spirit cameras, the serious consideration of
Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis, Sheldrake’s morphogenic fi eld theory,
Devereux’s earthlight evidence, the work of Lyall Watson, and a
thousand other devices and ideas that Watt maintains will push
Null Mysteriis fi rmly into the realm of the cranks.
Of course, some might argue they’re there already. Certainly,
although many highly regarded professionals in scientific fields
pay regular membership dues, few of them openly
admit to being members.
Structure
You spent years trying to prove the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis,
and in the end you found nothing at all, and it frustrated
you that many of your fellow seekers wanted to believe
so much that they refused to accept evidence to the contrary,
even when it was staring them in the face. You’re not a professor
or research scientist like most of the other members, but
you appreciate the rigorous application of science and have
made yourself useful in the fi eld, because you’re handy with
a shotgun.
You’re a professor in some very solid scientifi c fi eld —
evolutionary biology, perhaps, or organic chemistry — and
you’re about as convinced an atheist as anyone can be. There
are not any more things in Heaven or Earth, Horatio, and
you’ll stake your reputation on proving it.
You lost a family member to some supernatural creature,
and this led you on a dark path, a path that threatened to cost
you your scientifi c career. Fortunately, you came across Null
Mysteriis, and found that you could still be a scientist. Still,
you’re prone to rash decisions, and often behave violently toward
things unknown — you hate and fear them, even if you
don’t admit it to yourself.
You got yourself a PhD by the skin of your teeth, but your
heart lies with the alternatives, the fringes of science and
medicine. You trade as a homeopath now, not letting people
know that the PhD after your name is in physics, and fi nding
great pleasure in going out and proving to yourself that science
still has a way to go yet before it’s got those universal
mysteries pegged.
You used to be employed by the government, but there
came a time when your masters employed you to clean up
something and not ask questions, questions you couldn’t stop
yourself asking. Now you ask freely.
Public Agenda
Theories about the nature of the paranormal abound within
Null Mysteriis; for every hunter, a new theory. Still, a large number
of them can be very broadly categorized into one of three groups.
Alexander Watt’s Rationalists form the majority of Null
Mysteriis: it’s all provable (and disprovable) with science —
only some of it isn’t yet, but will be one day. It just needs
diligent research and sensible empirical study.
On the other hand, Vincent Fielding’s Open Minds believe
the important thing is proving or disproving the phenomenon by
any means necessary — even means that some might call unscientific
— and worrying about what makes it tick later. They’re
growing in numbers, much to the dismay of Watts’ faction.
A small but similarly growing number of Cataclysmicists
rise above the methodological argument and instead react with
concern to a steep rise in reported paranormal phenomena (and
hence expense of unclassifi ed energy) since the millennium, projecting
that if it doesn’t slow down soon, the world could be in
for an cataclysm or apocalypse of some kind, and further postulating
that maybe something needs to be done about it.
All things that can be studied are natural
The Enemy
For Null Mysteriis, investigation is absolutely everything. It’s not about stopping supernatural phenomena, or fi ghting evil. It’s about knowing. The current orthodoxy among the organization is that the paranormal is neither good nor evil: it’s the result of one or more as-yet-unclassifi ed orders of energy. And that’s when the phenomenon is paranormal — it’s often wholly explicable by conventional science. But what if it isn’t? The supernatural seems, more often that not, to manifest in ways detrimental to humanity, but that doesn’t make it evil. It’s like radiation: everyone knows that radioactive material can kill, but at the same time, no one thinks it’s consciously evil. The paranormal’s often like that. If, for example, a paranormal conspiracy makes a man invulnerable but at the same time turns him into a deranged slasher, how is that different from radiation sickness, at least in moral terms? Vampirism is a communicable illness, albeit one that somehow suspends human aging and hides life signs while making its victim vulnerable to light and dependent on a parasitic existence. Lycanthropy, likewise, is an extreme genetic condition. So-called ghosts carry the energy signatures of the living. Demons and similar apparently extra-dimensional creatures are composed of energy that could come from anything from quantum pocket universes down to geo-electricity, and given form by the perceptions of the viewer. It’s all got an explanation. If the explanation has holes, it’s OK. Everything operates on the level of hypothesis. It’s the best explanation that anyone’s going to come by, and if someone comes along with a better one, that’s fi ne. All of this isn’t to say that the members of Null Mysteriis can’t and won’t participate in the destruction of a dangerous supernatural creature. The radiation sickness analogy holds true: if an energy that gets out of hand is deadly, it mustn’t be allowed to get out of hand. Likewise, if the state of vampirism makes one a blood-drinking psychopath, it may well be best, given the so far incurable nature of the disease, to put the poor soul out of his misery. Cancer may not be evil, but it can be cut out. The members of Null Mysteriis are not often adept at direct violence. Subterfuge, yes. Stealth, sometimes. Far better to approach a dangerous creature with a syringe of something potent than a shotgun or sledgehammer. They often work alongside hunters of other compacts and conspiracies, bringing along their electromagnetic fi eld readers and Kirlian cameras while other hunters bring Bibles, guns, grenades or holy swords. Some make contact through academic sources with members of the Malleus Malefi carum. Some have done contract work in their universities with people in the Cheiron Group. Of course, some hook up with members of the Ascended Ones, Aegis Kai Doru or Lucifuge, not to make alliances…but to capture and study these curious hunters with undocumented abilities.
Founding Date
1893
Type
Consortium, Research
Related Ranks & Titles
Controlled Territories
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