The Rest of All Possible Worlds: The Majestic Vision and the Soul

A few terms:

As laid out in the Words of Procophon, those who subscribe to the Majestic Vision envisage a process of progression through the afterlife to a place of rest. The language of the Words is of course, rather different to modern languages in Calliste - literally older, and not from the same common Horatione family. 

Thus below, we have the various portions of the self - as referred to in the Words, in common, idiomatic parlance and titled under the way they might be referred to in a Schoolman's address in the vernacular. Depictions of the portions of the soul in secular contexts or discussed in later scholarship use the language of the Words.

The Majestic Vision's Halls of Learning are not, commonly, highly decorated spaces - beyond a few Beatific Flame motifs. Still, depictions of the soul are found in them. A small but well-kept Hall for a Reader from the School of Malicarn might have one main central room (perhaps high-roofed enough to have columns and side-aisles). A main entrance is at one end and a rostrum at the other. Behind a lectern at the rostrum will be lampstands and a bookcase with copies of the Words and other useful texts. Hall furniture is generally finely-made, if not outright elaborate. (Other common features might be a Reader's office, a porch, a series of study cells).

Any images - of Procophon and Cnoh, of various famous Schoolmen, or of the figures described below, are likely to be found on the walls of central room (if the rostrum is at the north end of the building, they will be on the east and west). Music and drama are not common in the various Schools, but recitations of certain texts (to various degrees of elaboration and ornamentation) is well-known. Popular, but not always meeting with Magisterial approval, is the 'recitation with images' where pictures, tapestries and painted screens are lit and displayed while a number of performers chant segments of some apt text - including, perhaps, the Distant Inheritance.

The Journey of Significance to the Distant Inheritance was first written by Magister Bulstrode of Tanguysland. It is a great allegory of the journey of the soul through the hereafter to a place of comfort, wealth, strength and belonging - featuring a party of travellers with their own unique characteristics getting into trouble with assorted bandits, bureaucrats, tricksters, obstacles and demons.  The plot begins with a man receiving news that he has come into an inheritance in a distant land. He requests leave of his aged master ('Master Cadaveri' or 'Sir Corpus' or similar) to go forth and pursue it.

Of course, relatively few people actually read Bulstrode's Distant Inheritance: it has been edited, abridged, localised, translated, illustrated, vetted, retold, serialised, adapted for recitation and glossed so often that it may be considered a specimen of folk tale, or possibly a highly specific sub-genre: 'a Distant Inheritance narrative from Myrchonog features an episode unique to the region, in which....'

Callistan art may depict the figures below in single portraits or in ensembles. Single portraits would be considered the basic, simple option: not necessarily lesser, but easier for a middle-of-the-road artist to get right, fitting to display in more spaces, less obviously prestigious. 

The applicability of all this to matters of magecraft is that the Majestic Vision has been the intellectual influence on Callistan society for centuries: older texts will refer to it frequently, as will self-consciously old-fashioned newer ones. The Great Bifurcation can't undo that.

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Portions of the Soul-Entire

The Body

Frequently depicted in Callistan Art as .... an old man.

Referred to in the Words of Procophon as .... the Paleoangos

Referred to in common parlance as ....  Old Flesh

Personality in the Distant Inheritance .... Silent or senile.

The body that was, and shall be discarded. A minor figure in the narratives of the Majestic Vision, but omnipresent in artwork.

The Soul

Frequently depicted in Callistan Art as .... a deliberately plain everyman.

Referred to in the Words of Procophon as .... the Psyche.

Referred to in common parlance as ....  Ghost (often my Ghost, your Ghost, John's Ghost).

Personality in the Distant Inheritance .... Sincere but occasionally wayward protagonist.

That part of the soul with the greatest volition, the greatest connection to the human experience of decision-making

The Life-Image

Frequently depicted in Callistan Art as .... a (frequently nude) man in the prime of life, with major or long-lasting injuries marked in red on his body.

Referred to in the Words of Procophon as .... the Eikonosoma.

Referred to in common parlance as ....  Loyal Remnant

Personality in the Distant Inheritance.... Restless, Driven by appetite, Instinctive, Strong

The deeds of life upon the body are recalled by the travelling soul. Even if the soul is no longer embodied, ideas of body-like action persist in the form of the Life-Image. 

Embalmers and related trades will strongly suggest that a better Life-Image will be produced if their services are retained. 

A hand-coloured stylised monochromatic print of the Eikonosoma.
(Image is the 'Physical Instrument' Skill from the video game Disco Elysium).

The Shadow

Frequently depicted in Callistan Art as .... a hooded figure.

Referred to in the Words of Procophon as .... the Exoriaphoreus.

Referred to in common parlance as .... Shame

Personality in the Distant Inheritance .... Melancholy, Wry, Tempting

Despite being referred to as 'Shame,' The Shadow is all those things that a person has consciously rejected in themselves: not necessarily just base or vicious elements (though there is obviously the presumption by wider society that one should shun those impulses). 

For a celibate hermit, it might contain lust of the flesh; for an assassin, mercy; for a convert or other defector on grounds of principal, their former allegiance; for a former gambler, gambling. The thing rejected has to be a significant part of someone's self - not a season's fashion or an adolescent crush. 

The Social Being

Frequently depicted in Callistan Art as .... an older man clad in formal clothing (either a literal or figurative uniform), frequently with assorted medals or other honours. 

Referred to in the Words of Procophon as .... the Nomothete.

Referred to in common parlance as .... Glory (often 'Mister Glory', 'Sir Glory', 'Great Glory', &c.)

Personality in the Distant Inheritance .... generally proud and vain, though potentially quite personable and even protective. He varies the most with adaptation: possibly anxious and concerned with proprieties, possibly smug and self-satisfied, possibly boastful and hierarchical.

The part of the self that developed in response to or is enveloped by or even made by social laws and norms. Not purely meant to be a negative influence on the Soul, but clearly something of lesser relevance in the hereafter.

A popular belief is that the Social Being returns to monitor the deeds of their descendants, peers and those they have been generous towards. This meets with either the discreet silence of the Schools or the active condemnation of what is seen as ancestor worship. 

A hand-coloured stylised monochromatic print of the Nomothete.
(The 'Authority' Skill from the video game Disco Elysium).

The Sensibility

Frequently depicted in Callistan Art as .... a lantern-bearing angelically androgynous figure.

Referred to in the Words of Procophon as .... the Pneumaphos.

Referred to in common parlance as .... Soul's-sense.

Personality in the Distant Inheritance .... calm, hopeful, gentle but persistent. The most obviously affectionate portion of the soul. 

The sight of the soul: that which allows the Psyche to cast his sight forward up to the Majestic Vision. Not a mute quality, but one more associated with emotions than with precise speech.

The Forerunner

Frequently depicted in Callistan Art as .... a human-headed bird.

Referred to in the Words of Procophon as .... the Eidolon.

Referred to in common parlance as .... the Soul-Scout

Personality in the Distant Inheritance .... Musical, high-minded, mercurial, occasionally deployed as a deus ex machina.

The questing spirit, the spear-tip of the spirit - perhaps the most rhapsodised portion of the Soul-Entire, because in the Words and the records of the Schoolmen, it is by the motion of the Forerunner that miraculous power is wielded in this life. Of course, anyone trying to focus purely on this one spiritual muscle (as it were) is pursuing the Majestic Vision in such a way as would produce miracles.

Religion is somewhat out of focus in TRoAPW, but I felt like providing a little more detail to the Majestic Vision. Not an essential feature, but hopefully interesting all the same.