Alicia Roerich
Alicia Roerich (born 1691 AN) is a Benacian philosopher, esotericist and legata of the Women's Auxiliary Service. She is best known as a disciple and protégée of the influential Humanist thinker Helene Starenhold, from whom she imbibed mystical and occult teachings that she has endeavoured to synthesise with mainstream Humanist thought. In 1731 AN, Roerich was appointed Ideological Compliance Thought Leader for the Women's Auxiliary Service, a role in which she is tasked with indoctrinating auxiliaries in her interpretation of Starenhold's precepts.
Biography
Alicia Roerich was born in 1691 AN in the city of Merensk in the Unified Governorates of Benacia to Alexei and Helena Roerich, a wealthy mercantile family. From a young age, she demonstrated a curious intellect and affinity for esoteric subjects. Under her parents' tutelage, she was trained in a variety of academic fields including mathematics, natural philosophy, ancient languages, and the occult sciences.
Her interests, backed by her parents financial resources, would see her enrolled at the Benacian Academy in 1709 AN.
Encounter with Helene Starenhold
In 1712 AN, at the age of 21, Roerich attended a series of lectures in Chryse given by the Humanist philosopher Helene Starenhold. Starenhold's unorthodox synthesis of occult teachings and Humanist ideals resonated deeply with the young Roerich. She quickly became one of Starenhold's most devoted followers, absorbing the older woman's ideas on transcendental states of consciousness, psychic abilities, and humanity's ordained evolution towards godhood.
Influenced by Starenhold she would join the N&H National Sector Party of Chryse.
Career and Thought
Under Starenhold's mentorship, Roerich began developing her own eclectic belief system that merged elements of Humanism, esoteric philosophy and mysticism. Her writings from this period expound a complex metaphysical worldview centred on the concept of an all-pervading "Celestial Flame" that suffuses the universe and all life within it. In Roerich's cosmology, all of humanity is imbued with a "Divine Spark" that can potentially ignite into a blazing "Celestial Flame" and elevate each individual to a god-like state of enlightened existence.
In 1721 AN, Roerich was recruited into the Women's Auxiliary Service with the rank of matron. Over the next decade, she rose steadily through the organisation's ranks while continuing to publish extensively on her esoteric interpretation of Starenhold's "Humanist Meditation and the Celestial Flame" teachings. Her promotion to the rank of legata and appointment in 1731 AN as the Ideological Compliance Thought Leader was seen as a major victory for Starenhold's eccentric philosophical movement within the Humanist establishment.
In her current role, Roerich is responsible for developing indoctrination programmes that instill her idiosyncratic belief system in auxiliaries undergoing training. However, her efforts have proven deeply controversial among more orthodox Humanists who view her occult-influenced teachings as a potential heresy that could undermine the firmly materialistic foundations of mainstream Humanism.
Published Works
Some of Roerich's major published writings include:
- "On the Nature of the Celestial Flame" (1718 AN)
- "Humanity's Promethean Ascent" (1723 AN)
- "Revelations of the Archonic Seminary" (1726 AN)
- "Foundations for a Living Cosmogony" (1729 AN)
