A Theosophic Study of the Abstruseness of Portals

Written by Jehan Vollu

Year 1414 GE

Introduction
When discussing portals, a good practice I found beneficial is to open your mind to possibilities outside your perception and intertwine it with an objective stance. The reason for this is because of the nature of how portals work in the first place, which is we don't know. We do not know where a portal's energy comes from, we don't know of any real patterns to where a portal might appear (they might appear in one place continuously for what seems to be eons and suddenly stop one day), and we do not know if they have limits or if they are limitless. Because of this reason there is no professional study of portals as a long-term commitment (I am myself an exploratory archaeologist, foremost), as we can only make observations and guesswork based on what we already know of them.

Now that we have the unknown factor out of the way, let's talk about what we do know about portals. They are gateways of energy that transcend space and time in the form of "matter waves" (I will explain these waves more later). There is no one shape or color that is consistent, and occasionally even take presence in an invisible form. There's not even a common size to portals, and they have transported entire cities into The Lost Land (usually in pieces!).

Let's sort this out a little by going through the 3 ways we know of that a portal can appear-

Unrestrained Portals
These portals are, by far, the most common and least understood. We don't know exactly where the energy for these portals come from. They are responsible for forming what we know as The Lost Land, importing and exporting whatever comes across them, willingly or not. This kind of portal may take you to another world, time period, universe, or even the spirit realm. It is ill advised for the unprepared to use these portals unless they are already in severe danger.

Spiritual Portals
Portals can be summoned by someone's will in certain circumstances. It is unknown how to replicate this phenomenon artificially, though it has been done ceremonially with arcane artifacts. It can also be done using spiritually embedded objects connected somehow to the desired location they wish to transport to, acting as gates and keys. Very rarely a portal can be summoned through sheer will, although the discipline and technique to summon a portal this way is never consistent to the point of reliability. Portals summoned this way can last longer than unrestrained portals, and are more rigid regarding size and shape.

Technological Portals
The portals obtained through this method are the most consistent and safest way of traversing The Lost Land. Scientists and engineers at the Wazoa Institute in the city of Galyanna discovered how to implement "matter waves" (which was previously theory in the quantum mechanics field) into portals of certain shape and destination. To produce large amounts of matter waves into one area using this method requires an external energy force of immense power, usually achieved by nuclear fusion. The end result is a portal that can be a controlled gateway or even a teleportation beam that formulates matter back in forth in mere seconds in a beam of light.

Mystery and observation
So now that we understand some fundamentals, let's go more in depth. Again, as an archaeologist I cannot give concrete answers to all your questions, and I don't think anybody can for that matter. What I will do is tell of some real life examples and experiences to give you a deeper understanding. I remember in my youth just beginning to explore, I was in a caravan going through The Seemic Forest, and there was this one fellow, I think he was a Galyannic city man that became part of the expedition through having a friend in the archaeology department at the time, kept wandering away from everyone else on the sides of the main path, despite being warned multiple times. The lead became quite frustrated having to keep an eye on this one guy while having to watch out for everyone else at the same time, so they asked me to watch and follow him so he didn't get killed or have outside dangers take notice of us. I follow him around for a while at a distance, he didn't seem very appreciative of anybody watching him. There were no dangers that I could spot myself. This continues on for a couple hours until a black swaying portal appears in front of him. He had no time to move out of the way as it formed quite literally on his exact location. He went through the portal and then a few seconds later the portal vanished. I immediately ran back to tell the party leader what had happened, he silently shrugged and became quite insistent to push on forward as quickly as possible before anything else happened. Nobody had ever saw that man again and his fate remains unknown.

The frightening aspect of my little story is not necessarily the fact that a portal took away somebody instantly at what seemed to be a random occurrence. This was the dense Seemic Forest that had claustrophobic amounts of flora. Before being teleported that fellow was surrounded by various plants and trees, which all remained unharmed during the portals appearance, only the man was gobbled up by that blasted portal. Yes, well, this raises other questions doesn't it? Did somebody intentionally place that portal there to take him away? Or, maybe, do these portals consciously choose what goes through them? I can't say for certain, but you're not going to convince me that these portals appear out of randomness, even if they seemingly do not have a rhythm.

Which is another aspect that confuses people, and that is the spiritual/intentional aspect of these portals. Okay, so here's a fact you may not have known: People who have been through portals before are statistically more likely to encounter them again. The reasoning behind this is that because of the concept of wave-particle duality, matter waves also contain particles, referred to as "px-particles", that gather on a person's body like radiation that, very slightly, builds up over time ( accumulation estimates vary but I've never seen numbers over 0.5% every time a portal is entered). Eventually px-particles dissipate over time, but repeated exposure can attract matter waves like bears to honey.

I know several years ago I had a rare invitation to see the Miilek Tribe up in the Gorvan Cliffside, I can say for sure that they are a warm, welcoming people. They live off the land honestly, and traditions are complex and of upmost importance. There is a ritualistic rite of passage held when someone is ready to be a warrior/member of the tribe (everyone is technically to be a warrior and is expected to take on that role if needed). The rite involves days of chanting and the shaman spiritually empowering a square shape on the ground built from chiseled bronze stones. Eventually a greenish portal forms within the square and is ready for the "to be" warrior to teleport into a random part of the cliffside to survive by themselves for 1 full day. If the warrior is successful they return to the tribe and is assigned a duty based on their skills. The tribe itself has had such long term contact with portals through many generations that they have the power to summon portals at their own will, which of is undoubtedly is a strong and mentally pure kind of will.



Scientific research of portals
Being attuned with matter waves to that degree must seem like a bliss to those that do not regularly summon portals. For the rest of us another way of portal producing is through science-based engineering. While we cannot form a portal on the spot (despite unverified reports that the higher echelons of Galyanna had indeed achieved just that) we are able to coordinate stationary portals to take us almost anywhere we want to. There are, however, a couple downsides to this technology. First being that it takes a gross amount of power, up to 15 nuclear reactors are needed to power a single gate, limiting the average being to have to visit Galyanna in order to make use of the portals in the first place. Even then, the portals created through this process have a limited range, restricting their use to areas near Galyanna. A solution in the far future could be a sort of waypoint grid that could reach across continents. This was done in a limited fashion already by the warlord named Campaigner in older days, to transport his army to various locations in The Lost Land via his fortress, which used gross amounts of geothermal nuclear energy to transform the entire base into a gigantic battery bank.

Now, suppose we thought about a world without these portals, that is, what if The Lost Land did not have any portals at all and they just disappeared from existence? Some say that the world would be more stable, that we wouldn't have to have any worry about cataclysms and even dangerous entities would be mitigated. And, I would have to agree with them in a sense, that we would be able to live more peacefully and there would be an ability to live our lives more comfortably.

That being said, those that wish for a world without portals have such a low resolution understanding about what portals actually do, that I question their understanding of The Lost Land itself. Portals cannot be just categorized as a natural disaster, because as much as they destroy and take away, they also give back. They give us new opportunity and understanding around us. These portals give us meaning, we would be stagnate in such a closed system that there would be very little meaning for us to exist.

Purpose of portals and personal testimony
I understand that a lot of what I'm about to say is anecdotal, and I didn't intend to make an autobiography out of what's supposed to be an educational paper, but I think it is appropriate for knowing the positive aspect of portals. I was a young child of 9 years back on Earth, the place outside The Lost Land I was born on. My memory is fuzzy but I think the last year I lived there was known as 1944 A.D., which is a time system separate from our Galyanna Ecliptic era of time we use as of recent.

Well, life at that point...I didn't really understand what was happening on so many levels. I lived in a town in a region named France, and looking back It's weird trying to make sense of what was going on. I knew everything was at war, but me being so young I didn't know what that meant because most of my life saw soldiers marching up and down the streets. My parents, being so occupied with what was going on around them, were very distant. Passerby tried to save face and walk around with some semblance of normalcy but they ended up looking like walking mannequins.

Then one day, everyone was listening intently at the radio. There was a battle along the northern coasts, and the soldiers that roamed the town were losing. The emotional masks came off, and everyone was in a state of panic. I remember my mother and father packing food, some clothes and medicine, and we started heading out of town. Eventually we saw a crowd of people at a checkpoint the soldiers set up. They had surrounded the whole town and were not letting anyone leave.

My parents were upset and we headed back home. The next day I woke up to my parents yelling and arguing. We had to give up all of our food to the soldiers, which wasn't much. After they left my parents started screaming at each other. I just went to bed and tried to go back to sleep again. A couple hours later my mother brought the family camera, showed me how to use it, and said "Take this camera and go. I want you to go take pictures of the world, it'll be like an adventure!"

With the camera strap around my neck I was pushed out the door. I started walking down the street. Several minutes later I heard chatter from others that the town was going to be surrounded by incoming tanks. I panicked and hid between buildings, peeking out. I was nervous, I wanted to head home as soon as possible. I headed towards my house, and I heard propellers in the distance.

A voice from somewhere yelled "Bombardiers!!", bombers! I started racing for home faster, and in a moment, in the blink of an eye, I saw my home had blown into dust. I collapsed and shouted in the air. I was grieving so much I felt sick to my stomach.

My grief turned to fear as bombs were being dropped around the city. I began running in the opposite direction, hoping that I could get away from town as quickly as possible. All the sudden I saw a park, which I chose to run through so I could get away from the congested streets and collapsing buildings. As I was running I saw something take shape in the distance front of me.

I was so perplexed I forgot about the bombings, a blue shape that looked almost like floating water was in front of me. I took my camera and snapped a picture of it, for reasons I don't quite understand myself. Reality rushed in as a bombs got closer and closer. I figured that if I was going to survive this, I needed to get to that portal. I ran for my life until I got close enough, and I just jumped into the blue shape. All around me I saw stars of the sky and black space, I was speeding into what seemed to be an exit made of the blue transparency.

I landed on a stony ground. I lay there very disoriented, but eventually I slowly visualize my surroundings. I saw stone pillars and glyphs in what seemed to be a mossy cave. Confused I start looking around to see if there is a way out. I see a tunnel, and start to go through when I saw a Giant Beetle launch at me. It nipped my arm, I yelled out in discomfort! I run to keep away from the beetle, while a light comes closer and closer to the mouth of the tunnel. A man dressed in beige came out moments later, saw me and the bug, and barked at me to move away. He aims and shoots the beetle, turned to me and started by asking "Boy, what are you doing here?" in a British sounding accent. I was was still so shocked about where I was that I couldn't give an answer. Other people wearing various clothing and garments came out of the tunnel and started staring at us. One man asked "Who is this?" The British sounding man, blonde hair and beard with beige safari clothing, stated "I don't know, let me go outside with him and figure that out, start surveying, don't want to stay too long if there's nothing here."

As we're walking through the tunnels I ask him "W-w-what's your name?" He looked at me and said "Me, name's Bart Foster, the real question is who are you?" "Jehan..." I say quietly. We walk for another minute before I ask "Aren't you British?" He looks at me confused, and begins to crack up laughing a bellowing laugh that I still find relieving to this day. "I was Australian before I got here, lil' bugger!" Along the way out I begin to tell how I got here, and eventually he said "Well, from now on you're going to have to relearn things, because you're not where you think you are anymore." I ask "We're in Australia?" Bart looked at me and said "Not even close, you'll know the ins and outs of this place later on." We reach the daylight of the outside. I saw a sea of trees in a jungle area, things I previously only saw in picture books. Then I looked up to witness a pterodactyl flock fly past us at graceful speed. Bart nudged me and smiled "Welcome to Galyanna, kid, the Lost Land!"

Conclusion
I learned a lot from Bart, he taught me about exploring and archaeology until i was doing my own expeditions. The more I understood about this world the more that I understood about myself and other people. I will not know everything I want to know about The Lost Land and portals in my lifetime, but I don't need the shallowness of saturated intellect to understand the facts about portals. I know what portals are empirically, they are shapers of life! It's what we perceive them that makes our lives and this universe worth living in.