The People’s Church Of The Divine host, as an exploration of the sacrilegious relationship of the dark to Christianity in the magnus archives.
fuck it, another essay about the dark. I’ve talked about Manuela Dominguez, and how she’s implied to be queer. but now we’re going to go into the relationship of the dark to Christianity in the peoples church of the divine host…..
The Dark as an entity relies on an absence of light and the fear of the unknown. Historically, Christianity as a religious group kept from the knowledge of the masses, the Bible only being written in Latin so only the clergy could access it and a historical obstruction of the presence of science by the church. The devout often viewed science as unnatural or “against god” preventing scientific development and human understanding out of fear. The dark specifically is mostly shown in the series through the lens of The People’s Church Of The Divine Host, a cult, that often uses allusions in traditions to create a mockery of specifically Christian customs, however it does share similar if not the same rebuke for scientific practices as well as the hatred of which they do not understand. These two forces; the light of god and darkness are highly interconnected with each-other, in opposition of science/knowledge and have a deep complex relationship.
Manuela Dominguez, the “scientist” that birthed the dark star, grew up with an interest in science, and ultra religious parents who disliked that interest. They believed in the light of god and holy salvation yet they were hateful, spiteful people. When Manuela returned to her parents as they were dying, the fear in their eyes of their own god was obvious. Manuela grew to study physics becoming interested in dark matter, when she met Maxwell Rayner. He then taught her about the people’s church. In the statement about her “unconventional religious beliefs” mag 135 - dark matter , she says “If the words of my parents hold any truth, then God is the true monster, and “let there be light” the most evil words ever spoken.” This sentence is likely sacrilegious to Christians, being both a mockery of god and an opposition of him. She often uses words related to Christian contexts doing so in both mag 135, and mag 143. Words such as “gospel” “holy” and “sermon” are being used by her in a recontextualization of Christianity that opposes it’s original themes of light and goodness specifically in the context of god himself. This recontextualization of Christianity, while following opposing beliefs which mock and change the messages of religious rituals, inexplicably interlinks the dark with Christianity and god.
The ritual of The Dark is a butchery of Christian customs as well as the scientific process, warping and twisting (pun intended) the nature of them. The scientific aspect comes with Manuela creating a botched physics experiment, to create an “an aping mockery of science” or the dark star, a ball of dark matter that was to consume the sun. Manuela states “Scientifically, it was nonsense, of course…… What mattered was that it felt like science, and that was all I needed.” The mockery of said science and the use of a lack of information to create a concept that fully and utterly ignores the knowledge and laws of the known universe, altering the natural state of the world. in extreme Christian sects, altering god’s creation is commonly seen as unholy or a sin. This star, the center of their ritual, already opposes the belief that god’s creation is perfect and the rest of the ritual continues this theme.
In this ritual preparation of abandoned and shut up churches occurs first. Then for seven days, the church feasts. They slay the still and lightless beast, a thing of darkness. They drink it’s blood, which is a mockery of the catholic custom of drinking wine as the blood of Christ. They then submerged sacrifices in brackish water, blessed by the beast. Which is a twisting of the tradition of the cleansing and blessing properties of water as well as the tradition of baptism. Again the ritual twists Christianity using brackish, unclean water and drowning victims instead of lightly using clean blessed water to bless a child. They sung as the ritual went on, as is common in churches and other religious customs, and exalted until the eclipse started. Then as the world of darkness starts to form, Manuela says “The scream was mine, and it was joined by uncounted voices in fearful song.” Another allude to church choirs, however fueled in an amount of fear rather than love. Manuela also describes the attitude of those present involuntarily “the hysterical whimpering and fruitless prayers of the sacrifices” which indicates that the victims are praying, presumably to god, that they’ll be saved from the dark. This further opposes Christianity as their sacrifices are praying to god, and are being destroyed to bring about his opposite. Despite the negative relationship of Christianity and The People’s Church Of The Divine Host, there is a certain thing they share. A cruelty, a hatred, to that which they see as unnatural; either the force of god or the force of light.
First I must disclaim the fact that I do not dislike people who are Christian, your religious beliefs are so so valid <3. However, some Christians are capable of immense cruelty and hatred to those they cannot understand, such as many minority groups (queer people, people of colour, the poor, the disabled, other religious groups, transgender people). The fear of not understanding is human nature, and yet those who claim to follow a religion centered around light and kindness are cruel to those they cannot comprehend. The People’s Church Of The Divine Host mimics this in it’s repeated actions of cruelty to nyctophobes, and those who do believe in the Christian god, repetitively torturing them and wishing for their suffering. As Manuela visits her parents as they are dying, a pair of extreme Christians who also demonstrated a cruelty to others, she wishes that “they might die with the fear of darkness on their lips.” As much she despised her parents she became just as cruel as they are, hating the people they do not understand. She does not care that her parents are dying, she only wants her parents to suffer as they feared her god, much as she likely had in her own childhood.
She continues to exercise a cruelty to those who fear the dark, and is completely apathetic to the “unlucky” nyctophobe who was used as her battery to create the dark star. She drowns sacrifices in the name of her god. She has become the person who destroys and hates that which she cannot understand, just like her parents had. They worshipped opposite powers, and yet still fell to the same fear.
Other church members such as Natalie Ennis had been participants in Christianity, before leaving to join The People’s Church. In Natalie and Manuela’s cases, the uncertainty of life after death and their parents who are presumably Christian dying partially drove them to The People’s Church. Maxwell Rayner was a scientist in an age with an absence of knowledge, as well as a heavy Christian presence in England, which in some cases rebuked science. His path was likely similar to Manuela’s in the scientific aspect.
The relationship of the People’s Church and Christianity and it’s traditions are extremely complex, however their connections can be found throughout many of it’s statements, particularly in mag 135 - dark matter, statement of Manuela Dominguez about her unconventional religious beliefs, mag 143 - heart of darkness, statement regarding the fall of the church of the divine host, mag 9- a fathers love, statement of Julia Montauk regarding the murders of Robert Montauk, and mag 140 - Statement of John Flamsteed regarding the entity known as Maxwell Rayner. If you’re interested after this, I very much recommend Manuela’s statements, which in particular have high amounts of religious allegory.
long ass post. hope if anyones read all of this that they enjoyed it!!!!! i have problems and perhaps religious trauma….. uh….. if you wanna chat about this literally dm me or reblog i wanna hear yalls opinons!!