User blog:Aramithius/An Outline and Thoughts on CHIM

There's been quite a few questions about the nature of CHIM in these parts lately, so I thought I might as well add my two-penn'orth to the discussion. Bear in mind that I will liberally mix what we find in the games and MK's other comments in my analysis here. You have been warned.

Defining CHIM, and the Walking Ways
The first thing to bear in mind about CHIM is that we know very little about it. What we do know is steeped in metaphor and uncertain, and you'll likely get slightly different answers to the question depending on who you ask. Which is kind of appropriate, really, given this definition we get from Vivec:

CHIM is also numbered among the Walking Ways, which are also called ways to "reach heaven by violence". I personally think that this has something to do with the imposition of your truth on Mundus, so this violence is more metaphysical than anything else. We will discuss that briefly later, but for now, let's just go with the notion of CHIM as part of a collection of one of these ways, which means that CHIM can be reasonably described as some form of "ascension" or "godhood", but this isn't a literal ascension, if Vivec and Tiber Septim are reliable examples of the phenomenon.

CHIM and the Ruling King
The term 'Royalty' is the one most often applied to CHIM, which is often used as/conflated with the term the Ruling King in the 36 Lessons of Vivec, our most comprehensive source on CHIM. The notion of a King, if not a Ruling King, is present in the Enantiomorph, where the Rebel becomes King. There are constant references to the Enantiomorph throughout the 36 Lessons, with the repeated refrain that a Ruling King with an equal rules nothing:

CHIM and the Enantiomorph
This is one of those bits that seems to conflate the enantiomorph and CHIM, and also lets us know that if you would attain CHIM you need to be a Rebel who becomes King. So perhaps one leads to the other? I certainly think so, given this quote from Sermon 21:

The Secret Triangular Gate leads to the Secret Tower. CHIM is referred to as a crowned tower in the quote from Vehk's Teaching, which is too much of a coincidence as far as I'm concerned, particularly as we are told to "look at the majesty sideways". So the enantiomorph is a gateway to CHIM, which leads to a revelation about the name of God, which implies that the CHIMster and God are one and the same.

And just for the icing on the cake, it should be noted that one of the charges of the Thief constellation in Tamrielic astrology is the Tower. So the Rebel guards, and possibly resides within, the Tower.

So what does CHIM actually do, then?
We don't actually know for sure, on this one. Both CHIMsters we know about were already powerful in their own right, and it's therefore questionable exactly what they did with their abilities. We do have these quotes:

However, we also have the idea that it is the White-Gold Tower, rather than CHIM, which reshaped the heartland jungle:

It is also possible that Vivec altered his past so that he was always a god with CHIM, which I think is borne out with this quote:

In other words, the actions of the Ruling King affirm that status by their nature. This may be a bit of a tangent, but it ties in really nicely with some teachings from Boethiah:

That someone is known by their actions is what that line from Sermon 11 implies to me. And given that Boethiah is tied to the idea of leading Veloth and the Chimer out of Summerset Isles to Morrowind in order to make themselves better than the Aldmer they left.

CHIM and Being
Because of this, the state of CHIM is, I believe, akin to a state of mind more than anything else. This is something that can be achieved at various points in a person's life, but is unlikely to be a permanent state. From Sermon 11:

This, to me, is also a warning that all patterns (motifs) can end, and so to use the abilities CHIM grants excessively may ultimately be futile, as their impact will ultimately fall back into the state of chaos that is mundane existence. This may explain why those who claim to have CHIM have not used it excessively. But it's also likely to be because CHIM is more to do with their actions and their nature being essentially the same thing.

These quotes, apart from being beautifully dense, highlight that the Tower and the Psijic Endeavor, the latter of which is explicitly about achieving CHIM, are both ways of reshaping self, which, if we are to believe the structure of the world is the Tower, is I, is the same thing as reshaping the world. This links to an idea in Existentialist philosophy, that life is a process of self-creation.

In order to truly self-create, one needs to go back to the beginning of one's life to the moment of one's creation and conception. This is why Vivec declares "I accede my own precedent", why the Tower is described as "womb-ready", and Mankar says that "he that enters Paradise enters his own mother" elsewhere in the Commentaries. However, Mankar may be talking about a different process than that of CHIM, which puts it beyond this particular discussion.

The self-creation of CHIM feels, to me, like a delicate balancing act between asserting your will on the entirety of the world and not falling into its pattern, which requires that the CHIMster is not defined by the world, but constantly defines and re-defines themself, asserting the truth of their existence on the world, which is also associated with violence throughout the 36 Lessons. CHIMsters reach Heaven by violence through imposing themselves on the world, expressing the truth that they are one and only God.