Some questions and answers on the Documentary

Why is corporal discipline so over-represented in this documentary.

Some eleven hours of film were taken over the weekend, and obviously Miss Martindale and the group weren’t talking about/practicing corporal discipline for most of that time, so the film-makers clearly wanted to stress this aspect.

At the time it was the main thing Aristasia was widely known for, so an outside audience presumably wanted to hear about it. Miss Martindale herself stressed it or allowed it to be stressed because it was a way of bringing Aristasia to the attention of a wide audience. This documentary, for example, would likely not have been made otherwise.

Why did she do that? Doesn’t it misrepresent Aristasia?

Yes, it does to some extent, but her reasoning was that it was better for girls to learn about Aristasia in a somewhat skewed way than not to learn about it at all. She also believed that many girls attracted to discipline were so because of a yearning for order and harmony and a reaction against the chaos and indiscipline of the Pit. She felt that they should therefore be made aware of the Motherland.

How important is/was discipline in Aristasia?

It was and is very important. The main misconception promoted by this kind of publicity is that discipline = corporal punishment. Discipline actually means order, harmony, neatness: thamë. Discipline is conformity to the Golden Order. The word “discipline” actually derives from “disciple” and it means following the way of a (spiritual) mistress.  In some households or districts this is ultimately backed up by the possibility or actuality of punishment, but even then, in a majority of cases, punishment is not corporal.

So are you saying an Aristasian schoolteacher or elder-sister or other authority must be a Spiritual Mistress?

No. The point is that Aristasian spirituality is very much community-oriented and culturally-based. So the order, the thamë, the discipline of Aristasian life is based in its spiritual and cultural roots. The whole basis of civilisation in Aristasia Pura is that the Empress is the head of the Social Order, the highest link in the Golden Chain. She is the representative of Dea. The Queens of the nations are the next links down from her. They derive their authority from her. The chain goes down through Duchesses and Countesses (who rule Duchies and Counties) to the humblest of authorities. Every schoolmistress or elder-sister is part of that same Golden Chain that has the Empress at the top. Each of them is a representative of the Divine Thamë. In obeying one’s elder-sister one is obeying the Empress and obeying Dea. That is how the Aristasian social philosophy works. The distinction between the “spiritual” and the “cultural” is much less pronounced than in Western Telluria. It is in this context that we can understand that discipline, or order, is closely related to the concept of discipleship: discipleship not in the sense of being a renounced follower of a great spiritual teacher, but in the everyday sense of being a loyal link in the Golden Chain of thamë and  being blessed in one’s everyday actions by one’s filiation to the sacred hierarchy.

So Aristasian life is very strict?

It can be or it needn’t be. In some cases it is. In many cases the role of elders (meaning those above us in the Golden Chain, who may or may not be older in years) is not a severe and demanding one, just a gentle and guiding one. And as you see in the documentary, in Aristasia-in-Telluria the practice of personae also plays a role (if you’ll forgive the expression). The same girl may manifest an elder in some contexts and a junior in others. This is strikingly illustrated when Patricia is junior to Miss Martindale and Miss Marianne, but senior to Hilary – though all three are “played” by the same person.

Does this undermine the spiritual seriousness? Isn’t role-play in this sense just a game?

The whole distinction between “game” and “real life” is seen in a different way by Aristasians from the way Western Tellurians tend to see it. Creation itself is a game: in Sanskrit lila — the causeless, cosmic play of Dea. In constructing a Tellurian mirror of Aristasia Pura, personae have a valid function. So long as each persona enacts her proper part: obeys where she should obey, commands where she should command, then she is acting within the sacred thamë of the Golden Chain.

But the sort of punishment regime depicted in the documentary – has current Aristasia left that behind?

Publicly it was overstressed at that time – the time of the documentary. Possibly it is publicly understressed now.

Is every Aristasian in Telluria still subject to punishment – theoretically at least?

Yes. Every Aristasian in Telluria, insofar as she has given her loyalty to Aristasia, and is regarded by herself and others as part of the Empire, is subject to Aristasian law. That is just the same as any other nation. If she did wrong she could incur the sanctions of the law, whether enacted by a District Governess or by her elder-sister.

In practice, if one is a good girl and doesn’t do anything dreadfully wrong, there is no reason why one should ever be punished, and many Aristasians never are.

On the other hand, for some girls – Bridget/Madeleine in the documentary is rather a strong example – punishment is actually an important part of Aristasian life. Often this comes in forms much less dramatic than those depicted in the documentary. Small impositions set by one’s elder-sister or a prefect, for example (as we said before, most punishment is not corporal). For many girls this is an important thing; a bonding thing. If we don’t talk about that so much publicly now it is for several reasons:

The documentary can give the impression that an Aristasian school was just an excuse for corporal punishment.

Bear in mind that the footage used in the documentary is extracted from 11 hours of film – most of the unused footage was not “discipliny”; and even then discipline was being overstressed. No Aristasian school has ever been run as an excuse for punishment. When there are regular weekly Aristasian classes on average four out of five take place without any punishment at all, certainly without any corporal punishment.

There are bongo groups and “school scenarios” that are run as an excuse for spanking. Aristasians regard these as absurd. It is like running an office as an excuse for fire-drills. The fire-drills are not there to ensure the safety of the office; rather the office is there purely to provide occasion for fire-drills. A school run for “spanking” purposes is a similar absurdity.

Aristasian schools were and are run primarily to teach girls – to teach them about Aristasia, to teach them to speak properly and to teach other subjects and accomplishments an Aristasian girl should know. Secondarily they are run as bonding exercises. Girls share a comradeship and common experience that helps to bind them together as Aristasians. We were not born in the same nation: we were born in the Tellurian Outlands; therefore we require experiences that will bond us as part of the same group, the same nation, the same family.

Discipline can be a part of that bonding experience for some girls. For none is it the whole, or even the major part. For some it would be counter-productive and there is no reason for them to experience it.

Would it be putting you on the spot to ask: are the girls who are bonded by corporal discipline more deeply bonded? Are they an in-group?

I had rather say by strict discipline. It isn’t necessarily corporal. And yes, it is a deeply bonding experience; and yes, it does form an in-group. But it isn’t the only deeply bonding experience or the only possible in-group. Aristasia is a nation, not a club. It appeals to many different types of girl.

So yes, strict discipline does create one form of deeply-bonded in-group. Conversely it can have the opposite effect – that is, if strict discipline is over-publicised it may attract girls who are only interested in the discipline. These are the least bonded or bondable of girls and can only form an out-group from an Aristasian perspective.

Is that another reason why Aristasia doesn’t stress strict discipline so publicly these days?

Yes. We are essentially saying: “Prove you are a good Aristasian first. Then we can talk about strict discipline if you want to.”

Suppose some girls wanted a specially strict school (or perhaps military or domestic service) experience, with an emphasis on severity? Would that be legitimate. Do such things exist in Aristasia?

It can certainly be legitimate and such things have existed in Aristasia and currently may occasionally take place on an ad hoc basis. In the future such very strict institutions may exist permanently in parts of Aristasia-in-Tellura. There would certainly be no objection if that were genuinely wanted.

It is a path some girls need to follow, but in the Outlands this sort of thing can easily lead to confusions and attract very much the wrong sort of person (as well as repelling many of the right sort); so it is not a thing we tend to discuss publicly these days. Again I would stress that this sort of thing would only be considered legitimate for people who wanted this kind of discipline as part of their Aristasian development: not those who came to Aristasia purely because they wanted severity.

I say “wanted severity” and not “wanted discipline” because coming to Aristasia to find the true thamë, the Golden Order, is, in a sense, what we all do.

There seems to have been much more of an “open door” policy at the time the documentary was made. For example I am not sure someone of Felicity’s level of commitment would be admitted to an on-the-ground Aristasian household these days.

One has to realise that “on-the-ground” was all there was at that time. There was an early Aristasia web-site, but only a minority of people had any connexion to Elektraspace. The main way to find out about Aristasia was to visit an Embassy. Now, of course, people can learn a lot about Aristasia on-line and can have a lot of contact and ask questions via Elektraspace; so we can (and do) expect a girl to be reasonably au fait with Aristasia before she makes any on-the-ground contact.

In Felicity’s case, this was an interesting experiment in how far someone whose interest in Aristasia was almost purely “external” could actually develop (or uncover) a more traditional, Aristasian-type persona. It has also been seen by some as an interesting reflection of the type of persona some girls develop in the Pit in order to cope with the assaults and demands of bongo culture, and how these may contrast with what is really inside a girl.

Miss Martindale says that breath and Spirit are the same word in Sanskrit. Isn't this true in other languages too?

Yes. Obviously she was only giving a brief account. In fact:

Sanskrit atma
Hebrew ruach
Greek pneuma
Latin spiritus

all mean both breath and Spirit and these carry over into most European and many other languages. For example, Spirit/respiration/inspiration in English. The German word for breath is Atem, a barely-altered cousin of Sanskrit atma and some early German texts refer to the Holy Spirit as the Heilige Atem. English breath comes from Old English aethm/Old High German atam, atum. The prefix br/ber appears to mean “great” and may be a reference to the identity of the “small”, or individual, breath/spirit (jivatma) with the Great, or Universal, breath/Spirit (atma).

In Aristasian terminology (which again has counterparts in many Tellurian cultures, for it is a universal truth), Sai Annya (Fire) is a yerthing (coming-to-earth) of Sai Raya (the Sun).

Comments

It's so so so interesting!! And I think that if I had been in the same situation, I would have had the same behaviour as the curly-haired girl, the one who had just arrived. Unfortunately it finished soon...I would have watched it for 2 more hours!

Violet Viola

Isn't it gorgeous? It makes me wish there could be more movies about Aristasia!

Perhaps in the future - does anyone think it would be possible?

Petite Sorcière

My favorite part:

Amalya Corinthian

What a wonderful film! Even the rather lascivious emphasis on corporal punishment couldn’t disguise how magical and compelling this weekend must have been. Perhaps some of these girls—if they are still around—could tell us their memories of it. Or perhaps Miss Martindale could be persuaded to tell us more about it.

I am curious about so many things that seem to have been left out. For example, were there spiritual exercises that were not shown in the documentary, and, if so, what form did they take?

How many people repeat these weekends? Are there girls who participate in a longer program than just one weekend? How many girls became Aristasians as a result (at least partly) of their experiences under Miss Martindale’s tutelage?

Did Miss Martindale enjoy holding these retreats? Was she the only one in charge, or did she have some help with this dizzying myriad of girls? I noticed that there was a different girl in the kinema sequence, the one with the dark hair who ordered “Aristasian liquor” at the bar before the show. (She ordered sweet liquor, which makes me think she’s a blonde.)

And: What is Aristasian liquor?

Adele Poppy

What interesting questions!

Certainly many of the girls who came to meetings of this sort were regular and several became Aristasians and still are. There were a variety of events that took place, ranging from theatrical performances to religious services. The Filianic Rite was held on the High festivals (or the nearest gathering thereto). Other spiritual activities included chanting sessions, in accordance with the belief that chanting the name of Dea is the surest way to Her in the Age of Iron. None of this would have been filmed since it was impossible to tell with how much reverence the film-makers might have treated it.

Miss Martindale very much enjoyed these events as her vocation was to help girls realise their true Aristasian potential, and there were others in authoritative roles.

The weekly schools were a continuing programme and there were occasional week-long programmes.

As for the mysterious "Aristasian Liqueur" - if you look at the brief close-up of the label on the bottle you will see the beginning of the word Jaegerine, an Aristasianised cousin of German Jaegerin (huntress) and a picture of an Art-Neo Trentish Artemis-figure. Apparently there were experiments in Aristasian liqueur-making, and Jaegerine Schnapps was possibly an Aristasian equivalent to the famous Tellurian liqueur Jaegermeister.

Lady Aquila