Joshua Sinclair

b. 2770CE d. ????; Joshua Josephson Sinclair, Founder and Master of the Enochiian School; Seer; Sage; and Sculptor of space-time. The ninety-second generation descendant of Jeheshua ben Josef, Prince of Judah, heir apparent of the House of David, and known to his followers as Jesus the Christ. Both of Sinclair’s parents were also direct lineal descendants of Jeheshua ben Josef. His mother, Marie Louise Plantard de Anjou, was a fifty-fifth generation descendant of Guilleme I, King of Jerusalem. His father, Joseph Stewart Sinclair, was a sixty-fifth generation descendant of Clovis I, Holy Roman Emperor.

Joshua Sinclair was born August 21, 2770 CE on Olympia, a wood products colony planet operated under the Charter by Weyerhaeuser-Pacific. He settled Equinox with his parents in 2783 CE along with his elder brother James Stewart and younger sister Mary Clair. Sinclair’s father had been posted to Equinox as Planetary Executive Officer (PEO) by Weyerhaeuser-Pacific Corporation. This was Joseph Sinclair’s fourth and last posting as a PEO for Weyerhaeuser-Pacific. His reputation with the company was that of a tough, buy-the-book, exploitation specialist. The elder Sinclair was assigned new company leaseholds to establish colony infrastructure and to bring the property to profitability. Once this had been achieved, he was transferred to another assignment to repeat the process.

Marie Louise Plantard-Sinclair, PhD was an exo-nutritionist and educator whose specialty was the optimization of settlement populations using a synthesis of imported and aboriginal foodstuffs. Marie had been introduced to Joseph Sinclair on Olympia, the elder Sinclair’s first planetary exploitation assignment. Marie had contracted to Weyerhaeuser to assist the settlers in the establishment of the colony. They were married in a civil ceremony on Olympia in 2756CE.

Joshua Sinclair’s childhood was marked by the distance he placed between himself, his family and his friends. Although an affable child, he lived much of his life in a world of his own making populated by dream characters – both waking and sleeping. His parents, mentors, and playmates thought that he had a very active imagination. He had few playmates and even fewer lasting friendships because of the periodic and distant relocations dictated to the family by Joseph Sinclair’s career.

Joshua was a most complex person. He had an eager, agile mind with an analytical curiosity offset by irresponsibility and an economy of action that would be characterized by many as laziness. He only did enough to satisfy the minimum requirements in most school subjects. However, when presented with subjects that piqued his curiosity or fascinated his interest he would become completely absorbed. These traits placed Joshua in constant conflict with his father and older brother who were both disciplined over-achievers.

Sinclair discovered his lifepath accidentally in 2785CE when, after an argument with his father and a fight with his elder brother, he escaped to the Enochiian wilderness. On family treks in the wilderness, Joshua had learned from his mother how to “live off the land” and was completely familiar with the local fauna and flora. Thirty-three days after he abandoned his home, Joshua entered the Enochiian Adeptii Hall Beshrith. He had been guided by the waking vision of Balthazar, Mage of Sumer, who had first introduced himself to Joshua in a dream when the latter was still onboard the Lux Aeterna orbiting Equinox. Sinclair and Balthazar had visited Beshrith may times in Joshua’s dreams since his settlement on Equinox two years earlier.

The Transformation as recorded by many Enochiian historians and Imperial scholars began on the night of Premthoth – July 23, 2785CE. During the Transformation Sinclair’s brain chemistry was irreversibly changed. Many of the events, occurrences, and “miracles” attributed to Joshua between the Transformation and his disappearance (the Ascension) on September 9, 9994CE (441 BG) were the result the chemical changes brought about by his proximity to the Sequoia adeptii of Beshrith on the night of Premthoth, 2785CE. The lifepath of Master Joshua Sinclair was long in time and broad in space. The knowledge imparted to him by the Adeptii and his ability to mold reality below the quantum mechanical level – the result of his altered brain chemistry – brought within his reach the vastness of space-time for him to experience and study.

Joshua’s journey, undertaken to apply the knowledge revealed to him by is nearly continuous dialogue with the Adeptii, was made through both physical relocation (Sinclair called “translation”) and symbiotic extension (he called “going in disguise”, or skrying – the Enochiian term).

The historic record has numerous references to the miraculous appearance of “angels” or “visitors” that closely match Master Joshua’s customary appearance – he was an adherent of the Law as practiced by the Hasidim – his beard and hair were worn long and he preferred a loose fitting floor-length garment to the fashions of the twenty-eighth century.

More difficult to chart through history were his skrying travels. Sinclair would receive permission, usually subconscious, to occupy the conscious mind of an individual and would spend time living in that person’s skin to experience their life and times. Scholars attempting to verify these claims by the adherents of the Enochiian School have found historical references – usually in psychological evaluations or physician’s charts of therapeutic sessions – to the activities of individuals who claimed to have “missing time” episodes, or were “overtaken” by the urge to perform some heroic or unusual act. Some of these anecdotes matched the journals Sinclair kept of his travels to a sufficient degree of congruency to receive scholarly acceptance as fact.

Sinclair’s influence on the history of the Known Universe was concentrated in what could be called the first century of his life. He seldom traveled using conventional methods. Most of his life was occupied by teaching on Equinox, on his own studies, and on “pilgrimages”. The principal exceptions to this routine could be epitomized by his appearance before the Charter Convention of 2810CE, and the attempt on his life which took place on New Jerusalem in 2853CE.

Joshua’s keynote address to the joint session of the Charter Convention in 2810CE may have been ultimately responsible for the decline and fall of the Corporate Hegemony and the rise of the Empire of Ten Worlds. Scholars have studied his speech using a wide variety of paradigms and praise Sinclair for his depth of insight, skill of reading and mirroring the subconscious tone of the audience, and with stunning clarity planted the seeds of fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the future of the Corporate Charter while subtly creating a vision of a better, greater future for the citizens of the stars. Charter leaders hailed the speech as a sweeping endorsement of the status quo while revolutionary leaders heard a righteous blessing of their plans to tear down the decadent Corporate regime.

Sinclair not only fanned the flames of unrest with his Charter Convention speech, but he created an arch-enemy – his elder brother James Stewart Sinclair. The elder Sinclair had risen rapidly in the Weyerhaeuser organization after assuming the PEOship of Equinox upon his father’s untimely death in the Equinox Riots – the failed planetary revolt of 2799CE. James Sinclair attended the Convention as Weyerhaeuser’s senior delegate. The elder Sinclair demonstrated a gift for ruthless politics and diplomacy – first demonstrated during his containment of the Equinox Riots.

After the Convention, intermittent attacks on distant outposts of the Hegemony increased in frequency over the next two decades. These early skirmishes of the Rebellion were called the Robin Hood Raids. James Sinclair manipulated public opinion about these attacks as the chief media spokesman for the Hegemony. He used this position to consolidate a power base, and with the power base he lobbied for a comprehensive response to the raids. He achieved the pinnacle of his power when he became the Chairman of the Committee for Public Safety in 2831CE.

The Committee for Public Safety was the grossest misnomer since its namesake that followed the French Revolution. James Stewart Sinclair reintroduced terrorism to the population of the Known Universe. Soldiers of the Public Safety Force were first garrisoned on the most distant colonies, and undercover agents infiltrated all strata of Hegemony society. James Stewart Sinclair’s strategy was to employ fear and peer pressure to erode the rebel’s support base among the working classes, the underemployed, and the student population. Each raid by the rebels was followed by the arrest and execution of hostages arrested indiscriminately from the rebel’s support base. Corporation personnel deaths were repaid tenfold by the public execution of men, women and children. The destruction or theft of Corporation property was answered with the leveling of private residences, apartment blocks, and small business establishments. The rebels responded with increased and more strategic raids against Hegemony assets both human and property. The oppressed population responded with non-violent protests, strikes and passive resistance. Joshua made few public appearances during the early years of the Robin Hood Rebellion. The media would flock to Equinox in the festival days leading up to Premthoth and the annual minor festivals and celebrations when the Halls of the Adeptii were open to receive new supplicants and the public. His quoted comments were manipulated to contrast with those of James Stewart Sinclair and the Committee for Public Safety.

Joshua’s second hyper-book The Way of All Things was quoted by the leaders of the Rebellion as their raison d’etre, the justification for the destruction of the Hegemony. Scholars and historians who have studied fragmentary copies of the book find some rational for the Rebellion position. The section of the book called The Book of Equilibrium makes a reasoned argument for the individual’s action to restore balance in systems that are dominated by chaotic forces and inherently out of balance.

The Rebellion’s use of Joshua as a de facto figurehead set in motion the events on New Jerusalem in 2853CE. By the spring of 2853CE, James Sinclair had become convinced that the only way to restore order was to remove his brother as an inspirational resource for the rebellion. He recruited a small team to execute the operation. The team was genetically programmed to perform the operation and disband to preassigned locations distant from New Jerusalem where they would self-destruct from massive failures of the immune and neuromuscular systems. A micro-miniature anti-matter device containing 666 molecules of water and an equal number of anti-water molecules was disguised as component of the Cosmos Peace Prize to be presented to Joshua at the close of the Unified Judeo-Christian Church’s celebration of Passover/Easter. The bomb had the destructive power of 2,000 tons of high explosive but was no larger than a salt crystal. The device was set to trigger by Joshua’s unique brain waveform. Joshua thwarted the attempt by sensing the reaction as it commenced and reversed space-time locally around the device. No one present knew of the event. James effectively covered his tracks by letting the special operation team to complete the assignment and vanish.

The failure of the assassination attempt ruined James Sinclair. He came to the realization that his life had been based on a belief construct that had become inherently evil. He committed suicide on Joshua’s eighty-third birthday in the summer of 2853CE. His final act was to publish an open letter of apology to Joshua and to human civilization calling for fair and equal treatment of all employees of the Corporate Hegemony. Secret talks began in 2854CE between members of Charter Convention’s executive board and representatives of the Rebellion leaders. These led to the General Amnesty of 2857 and the amendment of the charter to include the establishment of the Constituent Assembly whose first meeting was held during the Charter Convention of 2860CE.

The greatest mystery associated with Joshua Sinclair surrounds his disappearance on September 9, 9994CE (441BG). Contemporary accounts and media recordings of the time show that he appeared, as if through a fissure in space-time, surrounded by a blazing, actinic, white light that winked out as he appeared. It was minutes before Amadthoth at Shabbaas and the Hall of the Adeptii was crowded with matriculating adepts, apprentices, novices, friends, family, the media and people who had traveled vast distances to see the Master. Joshua officiated over the rites of passage which on this night included the raising up of three Masters. When the rites were completed Joshua turned to the multitude and spoke. He called to one of the new Masters; a tall man called Simon, and embraced him. He turned Simon toward the multitude and announced that Simon was now Master of the Enochiian School. A gasp of shock and amazement murmured through the crowd, which Joshua silenced with the slightest motion of his hand. He told the multitude that he, too, was about to enter a rite of passage. One that he wished all could one day attain. With that simple statement, he knelt and arranged himself in the position of quietude and bowed his head. Utter silence filled Shabbaas. Shortly, the adeptii began to sing. Like notes from a vast pipe organ, starting in frequencies that were not heard but felt in the body and bones, and mounting note upon note until the air itself seemed to ring with a chord that surpassed human hearing. At the peak of the crescendo it stopped and the echo of the magnificent chord dwindled into the night.

All eyes were focused on Joshua. The air around him began to glow. Brighter and brighter the light about him became until the multitude had to shade their eyes. Everyone expected that Joshua would vanish the same way he appeared – through a fissure in space-time. He did not. Instead, the light surrounding him expanded until it enveloped the students of the school. As it expanded it became dimmer. The multitude could look at the spectacle before them in wonder. The light continued to expand until all of the multitudes were suffused within its warmth. Anecdotal accounts of the next event are unanimous. The students and multitudes were engulfed in a gentle embrace of love and warmth, and each heard the words, “Farewell … We love you.” Joshua Josephson Sinclair vanished. He had faded into thin air.