 The Fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves. William Shakespeare Welcome to Episode 005 of The Foundation. Today, I'm going to talk about the Fifth is Church, a group of interest that worships the stars and believes that the stars worship them back. Or something. As always, the majority of this podcast necessarily includes my own opinions and thoughts about the SCP Foundation and the SCP Wiki. After all, there's only one real rule to the SCP Universe. There is no canon. Part 1 How to make friends and influence people Do you feel a void in your life? Everyone does, whether they know it or not. Think about it. Do you feel it inside you right now, a heavy emptiness in the middle of your chest? It's a reflection of the one in your existence, like particles and quantum entanglement. Do you remember how we talked about quantum entanglement? Not yes. Yes, you do. Yes, you feel the emptiness. This is good. It's a blank slot, waiting for you to fill it up with your deepest desire, until your deepest desire is pushing up into your throat. You will gag on your need, and until you do, it is a resignation space for you to build your will, like organ music in a cathedral, hear the music now. This is not a metaphor. If your will is strong enough, there will be music now. Remember now that nothing in this book is a metaphor. In your current society, you are encouraged to be yourself, as if this is the key to making your desires real. That doesn't mean anything. You can't be anyone other than yourself. If you were to be someone else, you would still be you, and you would be someone who is someone else. There's no getting out from under your existence. You can't be anyone else. It stands to reason that if you want to change your reality, it's the world that must change to suit you. You must mold your phenomenological landscape into one where all your goals are achieved. Now imagine that the place where your desires are made real has a name. It's called the Fifth World. The Fifth World is the cosmos, twisted around you into the shape you will wish for. It has never been, but you can make it so. If the current world is like a tight-collared suit, then the Fifth World is like a flowing robe that allows complete freedom of movement. You will never truly move before you move in the Fifth World. You'll feel like a square on a piece of paper, who was only just told about up and down. An excerpt from SCP-1425 by Silber Escher. A well-known joke in the SCP community is that if you understand what's going on in an article, it's not the Fifth's Church. This is actually a pretty good guideline to go by, not absolute certainly, but more right than wrong. There is no way to describe the Fifth's Church easily. The group of interest is, by its very nature, unknowable. We can talk about it in as much as it relates to real-world analogs. The Church of Scientology is the most common comparison made to Fifthism, with its celebrity adherence and self-help bent, but ultimately, Fifthism both literally and metaphorically transcends those roots. But think of it like this. Take Scientology, mix in a little bit of astrology, at a dash of an unknowable universe spanning Eldritch Starfish, and you're halfway to understanding it. Let's do this. Try to find a difference between the anomalous religion I've described and how Scientology is described by John Travolta in this clip. What I've read amongst the skills that you've developed is the ability to control energy, space, time, and matter, which I'd love to have on my business card. What does that mean? Well, it means that all of the things around us are made of matter, and we're living in space, and we're registering time, and the better you can control it, the better off you'll be. If the whole thing is confusing, that's because it's supposed to be. In SCP-1425, which is the Fifthist Church's most important work on the wiki, the SCP object is a self-help book that literally talks about tuning in to celestial frequencies in order to be more like the stars. The only difference between this self-help book and the rest of the genre is that this one works. One of the more influential self-help books of our time is The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. The idea that if you believe it, you can achieve it is the essential core of the work, along with a set of four agreements that if followed, will supposedly lead to a fulfilling life. Star Signals is quite similar to this. If you take such claims literally, it would of course be anomalous. And even if just tens of thousands of people were altering reality at a whim, the world would quickly shift to a horror story. This is what Fifthism, if allowed to spread, does. In SCP-1425, the world is exposed to Fifthism and a way to make reality bend based on belief. A collection of celebrity endorsements and appearances turns us into what seems like a short celebrity fad, but Fifthism is rooted in sterner stuff. The church existed before Star Signals, and it continues to exist after the foundation claims of the mess. In the end, Star Signals nearly destroyed the world. That was just the West Coast branch. Part Two. Smoke on the Water. Gifts are available if y'all want to bring something home. Hell, this old bag of Peter Hayden himself to back is waiting for your pipe or doobie for your hip-tops. Go on and buy it now. We can't keep this show going on. What's that, Jimmy? Fumes. I'm telling you fumes, he says. We can't keep it going on fumes. People next year and every year, we will show you that the world 390 broadcast star is not a dying star, not a fading signal. No way. We have not reached our gold donation, but we have reached each other's hearts. Ladies and gentle friends, I'm getting sentimental. I think I need to light up some of this here, Richard Smith, before I cry. An excerpt from SCP-1982 by Famine Pulse. There are two well-developed and understood branches of Fifthism, and the second, Southern Fifthists, also have a strong rooting in a non-fictional religion. This time, it's Christianity. Specifically that of the Protestant Southern United States, and even more specifically, Southern Baptists. Where West Coast Fifthism is a New Age religion, Southern Fifthism invokes an old-time religion feeling. Where on the West Coast, it's all about the stars. In the South, it's all about smoke. Southern Fifthism has its roots in the sapient incense coil of SCP-1523 by Silberrescher, which is, incidentally, the very first Fifthism article. However, SCP-1982 is where the group of interest really stakes out its own ground as a definitive and separate part of the greater Fifthist group. Where SCP-1523 as a foundational piece acts as a bridge between Southern and Western Fifthists, SCP-1982 acts as a transformative work. SCP-1982 is a church in Georgia that has been condemned for 19 years and is covered in a fumigation tent. Inside, a service is being held regularly. We assume no one who enters ever leaves, but we can hear the congregation and the man inside preaching to them. As described, it isn't too dissimilar to a Baptist revival and the fumigation tent actually adds to that feeling. That it draws heavily from real-world practices is probably evident once you're exposed to an actual revival yourself. In the devil, hey listen, I come strutting by in that low-down buzzard said, you saved others, why don't you save yourselves? How can you Jesus, I didn't come to save myself. I came to be lifted up and then going to be glad to stand in the 20th century at the old cap meeting in Greer, South Carolina and sing on a hill far away. Stood the old rugged crawls. Praise God. Here was God's darling son. They plunge the spirit inside, the water and the blood gushes out. Jesus gave up the ghost, went in the heart of the earth, preached under those as in captivity. Paradise was delivered. Boy, I want to tell you when his blood was shedding about his head and went home, listen to me, bless God. I believe old Abraham rode over on the cold death couch, nudged old Sarin said, get up, honey. It's home going time. I believe old David got up and said, I told you, he wouldn't leave my soul in sheole. I believe old Adam nudged old Eve and said, honey, it's resurrection morning. Thank God. Oddly, Southern fifties seem less interested in trying to spread their gospel as they do in preaching to the already converted. That isn't to say they don't recruit. The people who enter SCP-1982 don't ever leave after all. But that seems almost incidental to the greater purpose of the church. And what that purpose is, you don't know. This is still fifthism after all. Part three, recommended reading. Don't be scared, baby. You'll hyperventilate trying to get me out, but you can't. I know you'll be a stranger to me, but I'll see you around. My body burns and rests and burns, but I'll be on the air. 24-7, if you know what I mean. I'll see you in your office. An excerpt from SCP-1523 by Silberrescher. Now we get to some suggested reading so you can get into this group of interest yourself. These are collated from community suggestions via IRC and a little bit of research of my own. It goes without saying that the articles I've already mentioned are part of this list and links to those articles. And the rest of the suggested reading will be in the YouTube video description or the Cactus Cast podcast description. So let's start suggesting. Under the stars with a late night campfire, read the prologue to Constellation Starfish. Water coalesces into sins as rain by soulless singularity. Fifthism has been around a lot longer than you might think and it isn't just Scientology or Southern Baptist getting in on the action. Read SCP-2456, Dreams of a Broken World by Megalyn for more. Good morning universe. Read Where They Kept Their Copies by Jacob Conwell. An actor, a meme and a deep longing song. Read about the Fifth Church Recruitment Tool and SCP-2425 by IHP. The serpent is by its nature both arcane and wicked. Read The Appalachian Scar by Famine Pulse. This is just an old fashioned love song. Read You and Me by DJ Cactus and performed by Oboe Van Geek 99. Actually, let me save you the trouble of finding the link. I'm gonna play Oboe's version of that song right now. You and me should take a trip across the galaxy and feel the waves of our own energy. Everything will come together slowly. Quietly. You and me will float through eternity. We'll stay up all night and wonder about where we've been and where we'll go. What we've seen and what we'll know. Guided by the lights above us so new. Pestles on an open sea. New. And I wanna be there with you to see it all within you. Becoming a part of you and me. I've seen the planets dancing around Melody. I dreamt about those far-off things that cannot help but make us sing about the beauty of the skies and how we want to live our life. You and me. We'll finish our time here one day eventually. And when we're gone they'll look up here. See us grinning ear to ear. They'll follow us to heaven's arms. So infinitely greater. Something that surpasses all our hopes and dreams. You and me. Vessels on an open sea. You and me. I wanna be there with you to see it all within you. Becoming a part of it. Just a passing thought. I've dreamt about it ever since the day you came and caught prey down and died. But don't leave to fear. I'm out here dancing. And soon you'll be. Vessels on an open sea. You. My name is Christopher Clayton Morris, though you may know me better under the pseudonym Dr. Samarian. This podcast is licensed under Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution Share Like Unported License. All works from the SCP Wiki used in this podcast are under Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution Share Like Unported License, including the following works. Star Signals by Silber Escher. First Southern Fifthist by Famine Pulse. Soul Brother by Silber Escher. Prologue, Water Coalesces and Descends as Rain by Solis Singularity. Dreams of a Broken World by Megalyn. Where They Kept Their Copies by Jacob Conwell. Fifth Church Recruitment Tool by IHP. The Appalachian Scar by Famine Pulse. Track Four, You and Me by DJ Cactus with a performance of the same text by Oboe Bandgeek 99. This podcast contain audio clips used under the principles of fair use from the following two sources, Billy Kelly's Sermon, Saving the Best for Last, and John Travolta's Appearance on Andrew Dalton's Enough Rope. This podcast contain the following audio works under a variety of licenses. A Human Being by Andy G. Cohen. Off the 2016 album Through the Lens. License Creative Commons 4.0, Attribution Unported. Like Starlight Through a Veil by Philip Weigel. Off the 2016 album Sound Tracks. License Creative Commons 4.0, Attribution Unported. Go Tell It on the Mole Hill. By Dr. Turtle. Off the 2017 album Flush Your Rolodex. License Creative Commons 4.0, Attribution Unported. No, No, No, No's. By Dr. Turtle. Off the 2017 album Flush Your Rolodex. License Creative Commons 4.0, Attribution Unported. No End Av by Jazar. Off the 2014 album Tumbling Dishes Like Old Man Wishes. License Creative Commons 4.0, Share Alike, Attribution Unported. Thanks for listening. A philosopher once asked, are we humans because we gaze at the stars or do we gaze at them because we are human? Pointless, really. Do the stars gaze back now? That's a question. Neil Gaiman, Stardust.