"Aetherist" was a colloquial term used to describe members of the Northern Fellowship for the Ascension of Man, also known variously as Fellows, Friends of the Ascension, and Brothers of the Horn.

Aetherism began as a splinter school of Meteoromancy which held that the universe was comprised not of four elements, but of six: base earth, where man began; water, which man was next compelled to conquer; air, to which he has arisen; fire, where God resides; gravity, which seeks to destroy man by sullying him with base matter; and aether, which pulls him upwards to his destiny. Aetherists understood the history of humanity to be a struggle to rise above the visible world, marked by its four elements, to become one with the sublimely transcendent stuff of the invisible firmament beyond. In the Aetherist scheme, God was not in fact divine, but merely another flawed if superior creation which would be properly killed or yoked once humans attained the spiritual and technological capacity to do so. Only the aether itself was perfect, unblemished, and worthy of devotion - at least until the moment of man's arrival within it when humanity would merge with the infinite and surpass it on the merit of man's previous conquests. Only gravity - physical, psychological, and spiritual attachment to anything low or base - had the power to prevent man from achieving his destiny.

Aetherist Influence

Aetherism proved a broadly popular philosophy and at its peak swelled its ranks with hundreds of the best and brightest from across the civilized world. Some found its unique spirit of nihilistic progressivism the right fit for the times; others simply joined to take advantage of powerful business and political contacts that had linked up with the society. All of this made the Aetherist hierarchy the wealthiest and most influential order of spare-time ritualists in the world. The organization's considerable resources were primarily devoted to funding new flight technology, efficiently and thoroughly exploiting the natural world, and building remarkably lush private residences for its highest-ranking members.

At the height of their prominence, Aetherists helped fund the construction of the Convection Engine, as well as its infamous successor, the Meat Turbine. They eagerly called for a vast culling of arwhals, not to support the ballooning arwhaling industry, but on the grounds that the creatures were "beautiful, transcendent, and in the way." They also promoted a series of "rocket-planes" designed to fly into the realm of fire - believed to lie somewhere above the mesosphere - and harpoon God, a plan which attracted some interest but ultimately was never implemented.

Widespread Aetherist influence became increasingly commonplace, and might have continued its expansion were it not for the society's role in promoting war with Gravitopolis. Aetherists found the city noxious for a host of reasons, and called for its destruction almost immediately upon its discovery, privately suspecting that its hidden ruler was none other than Ledden, the demonic entity who first pulled man from the celestial firmament and created gravitational force. While Aetherists were neither the only voice nor the most prominent calling for an attack on the underground city, they were singled out as the cause of the war once its disastrous consequences were fully understood.

In its postwar investigation, the Oversight Committee remanded full blame for the war and its dead to the Aetherists, and appointed itself as its own sub-governing body to officially sentence Aetherists to death. Aetherists had at that point exposed most of their once-secret organization to the public and were easily rounded up and executed by plunging, bringing great relief to the Universal Church of Gilded Dagon, which had been calling for such a measure for the better part of a century on grounds of mass heresy.

"Hidden" Aetherists

Despite the efficiency of the postwar purge, numerous Aetherists were reported to have escaped the Committee through bribery, deceit, and subterfuge, and rumors of hidden sects of Aetherists persisted throughout the next several decades, feeding a wave of anti-Aetherist paranoia in which numerous politicians, thinkers, and clergymen were driven from their positions based on scurrilous rumor and accusation.

Actual hidden Aetherists are far more difficult to uncover. Any sign of Aetherist activity vanished after the war, and while it is known that numerous secret levels and orders existed at the top of the Aetherist hierarchy, these would all have been known presumably to the Oversight Committee at the time of the purge given that at least one of its members, Josephine Tredimus, was a former Grand High Planet in the Fellowship.

Many historians have speculated that Cid Highwind was an Aetherist, although there is precious little evidence to support this theory; indeed, Highwind's apparent consideration of the rival Aether Hypothesis would have made him an apostate in proper Aetherist circles. Claims that High Beneficent Toth was an Aetherist have grown popular, but appear to be little more than camapigns of smear-by-association against either Toth or the Aetherists. Despite the claims of numerous conspiracy theorists, there is no evidence whatsoever to indicate that Pope Sennis was ever an Aetherist, nor that he was influenced by Aetherists in his reformation of the Church of Gilded Dagon, an association which would have qualified the pontiff for double-excommunication.

—Rudgaard Vanderplast