The philosophy centers around Ainai (northern dialects: Per) and Elith, two figures who would probably be termed "gods" according to our own religious sensibilities but who are treated much more subtly in actual Hyperborean philosophy. Ainai is the goddess/force/concept of beauty, Elith the god/force/concept of truth.
Elith represents everything that actually objectively exists, in the exact way that it actually exists. The world of Elith is mathematical, precise, and completely devoid of subjectivity. He is symbolically associated with winter, stars, the colors blue and silver, and all the hard sciences.
Ainai represents feelings, dreams, hopes, personality, meaning. Her world is numinous, charged with emotion, and fantastic. She is symbolically associated with summer, roses, the colors green and gold, and all the arts.
Both Elith and Ainai exist eternally and completely in and of themselves. However, these separate existences are literally incomprehensible by humans and have no relation to the human world or any value in human terms.
There is also a certain relationship between Elith and Ainai. This relationship has been expressed by poets and philosophers, depending on their earthiness, as love, a kiss, or a sex act. Out of this relationship comes the world and everything significant to humans.
Nothing in the world can exist independently of its connection to both Elith and Ainai. Consider a book, to take the example of the first thing I see on my desk. It exists in the world of Elith, as a series of measurements - two centimeters thick, twenty centimeters in height, and so on - as a set of atoms arranged in certain geometric shapes, and as the syntactic structures that regulate the words upon it. But it also exists in the world of Ainai, as the story within it, the associations and memories it creates in people, and even the feel of your hand stroking the cover.
The universe is constantly struggling to integrate its Elithian and Ainian aspects so as to achieve a complete concurrent expression of Absolute Truth and with Absolute Beauty. This is not a conscious, mental act on the part of the universe; it can be considered more analagous to a chemical reaction between two unlike substances, or like red and yellow mixing to make orange. Nevertheless, this is an extremely difficult process, and it corresponds to the extremely diverse range of phenomena that exist in the universe we observe. It begins with things like rocks and dust, which are neither scientifically/mathematically complex enough to fully express Absolute Truth nor meaningful and beautiful enough to fully express Absolute Beauty, and progresses all the way up to things like animals and people.
Humans are a special case, sort of a maelstrom of unamalgamated Truth-essence and Beauty-essence powerful enough to take an active role in its own amalgamation. We invoke Elith each time we solve a simple math problem or make a logical decision, and we invoke Ainai each time we make a moral or aesthetic judgment. But we ourselves are neither of Elith nor of Ainai, but of the reaction between them. Continuing on the chemical reaction metaphor, we are the light produced as a byproduct between the two reacting substances. Or, to go further, we are the neutrons produced in a nuclear reaction - because we create a positive feedback effect allowing the reaction to bootstrap itself and progress further.
In Hyperborean Death Customs, I called the soul "a question the divine asks itself." Now I can explain this more precisely. The specific question is "How are the Elithian portions of me and the Ainian portions of me to be integrated in such a way that the love between Elith and Ainai is properly consummated and the universe is brought closer to full perfection?"
There is no simple answer to this. The answer is not to sit and ponder this specific question, because the form the answer takes is a life well-lived - whatever that means! A person with a talent for drawing who becomes a great artist has answered the question in one way: bringing the Ainian aspects of zirself into reality by combining them with the Elithian attribute of objecive existence. A politician who has a dream of a more perfect system of government and works to instantiate it has done likewise. A scientist who explains the motions of the planet has done the same thing in reverse: taken something in reality, and cast it into meaningful, elegant terms.
One of the greatest heresies of Perelithve is to try to cut corners in this process; to try and reduce Beauty to Truth or vice versa by a simple rote theory. Platonism, the belief that concepts like goodness and beauty are simply objects that exist in a different world, is a heresy; relativism, the belief that facts are just things people believe is another. It is not a heresy to try to explain things typically viewed as belonging to one world in terms of another. To find patterns in music that explain why people find it beautiful is not a simple reduction of Ainai to Elith, it is an attempt to explain one of the many linkages between them that form the real world.
Hyperboreans tend to resolve many complicated philosophical problems by saying that each side is true in one of the two spheres. So, for example, determinism is correct in the sphere of Elith, but free will is correct in the sphere of Ainai. This is not to be treated as a contradiction, but rather as two separate statements, sort of equivalent to "In a factual, measurable sense, the world is deterministic, but once we slice the world up in such a way as to view it from our perspective as conscious beings, we really do determine our own destiny" (this statement will only make sense to people who have studied this topic before; I apologize for confusing anyone else). Likewise, aesthetics and morality are not factually true or logically derivable, but they exist in the realm of Ainai and therefore shape the universe we live in. Theoretical equations exist in the realm of Elith, and also shape the universe we live in without being literally a part of it.
In the sphere of Elith, Elith and Ainai are interpreted as philosophical principles and ways of looking at the world. In the sphere of Ainai, they are interpreted as people, and this is where Perelithve begins to resemble a religion rather than just a philosophy. Their depictions are relatively constant, and best exemplified in the first chapter of the Book of Loss:
In mythology, they are the Father God and Mother Goddess of the world, having complete and immediate control over all spirits, demons, and celestial and terrestrial beings. Elith's servants are the fixed stars; Ainai's the "dancing stars", the aurora borealis.He looks a boy of thirteen summers
His very eyes alight with Knowledge
His flowing hair as dark as Science
His glowing skin as fair as Wisdom
His mouth grown pale and worn from silence
His body decked in blue and silver
In raiments shining blue and silver
And round him, on a silver necklace
A single silver spiral sigil.
And she, a girl of thirteen summers
Her eyes as subtle as mandalas
Her hair as fair and long as comets
And gaily decked with living blossoms
Her mouth grown ripe with pregnant silence
Her body decked in many colors
As if she wore the very rainbow
And round her, on a silver necklace
A single silver spiral sigil.
In some unorthodox version of the mythology, Ainai and Elith have a single child, Quai, whose name means "joy". The philosophical implication of this is that joy is the result of successfully integrating Truth and Beauty in one's life and in society.
The next time I am able to write more on Hyperborea, I will discuss the government, and how its structure reflects the dichotomy between Truth and Beauty and aims to integrate the two across Raikoth to bring joy to its people and the world.