LAST EDITED ON Oct-12-01 AT 02:19 AM (EDT)

(since -nobody- has -ever- asked)

CHARISMATIC VULCANS
(see also: Way of Sybok)

The Charismatic movement among the Vulcan people has only arisen in the past century or so, and in that time it has become one of the most controversial subjects related to Vulcan in galactic philosophy or politics.

In 2331 a young student of philosophies at the Vulcan Science Academy, Sybok, published a paper which denounced the Way of Surak. Surak, the man who had unified Vulcan fifteen hundred years before through the suppression of emotion and the elevation of logic, had done a great disservice to the Vulcan people, Sybok claimed, who had lost a great deal of their innate selves to the total suppression of culture and individuality. Only when logic and passion were united, he claimed, could Vulcan's long era of stagnation end.

Sybok's paper was calmly but firmly critiqued into the dirt by Vulcan's leading minds, including his own teachers. The Vulcan capacity for passion, and hence for self-destruction, was too great to allow emotions to overpower reason, they argued. Only by strict suppression, or even elimination, of those emotions could Vulcan survive.

Despite this rebuke, Sybok persisted in both his education and his views, and in 2333 he was expelled from the Academy. Undaunted, he decided to prove his views by engaging in unlicensed telepathic therapy with alien races, using his philosophy of emotional freedom to better understand the pain in others, and to return balance to their minds. When his efforts were revealed, he was banished from Vulcan, and when fifty or so other Vulcans followed him no real notice was taken.

In banishing Sybok, the councils of Vulcan made a grave error. Where before they could use society as a means of limiting his effect on nearby Vulcans, now they had no such buffer to offset Sybok's sheer force of personality. Although he was not universally -liked- by any means, there was a strange charisma about him which compelled people to at least listen to his words... and many who listened found something which resonated within them. The popular name for Sybok's followers, the 'Charismatic Vulcans,' is based off of a typo in one newssheet's coverage of 'the Charismatic prophet Sybok.' (The C was not meant to be capitalized.)

By 2340 Sybok's philosophies had once more arisen on Vulcan, brought back there by converts and aliens who had met Sybok during his wanderings through the galaxy. Converts in ones and twos denounced the Way of Surak and declared themselves exiles before the Vulcan Councils could react. Once among the stars, they repeated Sybok's cycle, always encouraging the converted to tell others in turn.

Although Sybok himself has vanished among the worlds of the modern Federation, his followers continue to grow in number. Estimates of their numbers range from the Vulcan government's low estimate of 35,000 to a high guess of 400,000 by the Psi Corps. The only known static population of Charismatics, about 22,000 as of 2400, is in the Confederate Freespacers Alliance, where they make up roughly 50% of the total Vulcan-race minority of that nation. In any case, they make up an extremely tiny fraction of the 14 billion Vulcans in the Federation today.

Despite their small numbers, the Charismatic movement is regarded in several circles as a direct threat. The conservative elements on Vulcan believe Sybok's teachings to be subversive and dangerous, and they use every means in their power short of outright censorship to suppress their dissemination. Xenophobes from all races point to the Charismatics as a dangerous influence, in the same way Earth regarded the Mormon Church during its first century of existence. The Charismatics were specifically cited in the debates on the passage of the first 'Psi Act' and the creation of the Psi Corps.

The Charismatics also have their partisans in this controversy. In addition to the Freespacers, who have opened their doors to the Charismatics as well as psi-active humans and cybernetic intelligences fleeing persecution, nations such as the Zeta Cygni Republic, the Salusian Empire, the Minbari Empire, and the Star Kingdom of Manticore have openly expressed support for the Charismatics' right to believe and practice their beliefs.

In the end analysis, the Charismatics are a microcosm of the larger issues regarding telepathy and telepaths. The followers of Sybok may well, in the end, find their freedom joined with the freedom of telepaths of other races, regardless of creed. Whether their movement will prosper or be silenced remains to be seen.

--- Redneck

(Note: Sleik, chief of state of the Freespacers in 2388, is a Charismatic Vulcan; T'Pall, subordinate of Aya Nakajima, is a traditional Vulcan (follower of Surak).)

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