Abstract
God the Creator, in Wisdom, formed the three planes of existence: Celestial, Ethereal, and Corporeal. We acknowledge that Good and Evil dwell in Heaven and Hell on the Celestial plane, and within human hearts and souls on the Corporeal. Can not, then, Good and Evil both reside on the Ethereal plane?

The Ethereal is mostly known for its Marches, the Dreamlands. God could, had He wished it, restricted the Ethereal to this purpose only. But instead, we find that, when enough humans believe in a dream (or nightmare), it may manifest on the Ethereal as a spirit, no longer dependent on dreamscapes for survival. And Dreams, we know, is a holy Word, one to be encouraged among humanity. Therefore, Ethereal spirits that represent the good Dreams of humankind should find friends among the Host. Those that spring from Nightmares, of course, should receive the same treatment as any of Beleth's other Servitors.

The Purity Crusade, more than any other event, has influenced the relationship between the Celestial and Ethereal spheres. It was based on the assumption that Ethereal spirits were generated by worship that was not directed to God the Almighty. Many of these spirits set themselves up as gods, to better encourage human worship. It was this corruption of the ideal of the Divine that the Purity Crusade sought to undo [Uriel 745 AD].

The consequences are well known to all. Ethereal spirits, faced with extinction or alliance with Hell, often chose the latter. The difficulties this has caused are more fully addressed by Dreams in her paper on the topic [Blandine 2001 AD]. To summarize: maneuvers in the Far Marches are made more hazardous, Hell's legions are increased, and spirits that might have previously been sympathetic to the Host have become suspicious or even hostile.

No tears are shed over the passing of those false gods who encouraged evil and strife among humanity. As instruments of the Divine, we are surely called to combat evil whether its form be Celestial, Ethereal, or Corporeal. But how, exactly, are we to judge the nature of an Ethereal?

The tactic used by the Purity Crusade was to assume that all Ethereals, by their nature, must be evil, since they arose from misguided worship. Research performed since then has done much to weaken that claim.

The first blow came with the Redemption of a Servitor of Nightmares in 1050 AD. Details of the Balseraph's Redemption can be found in [Seraphim Council 1050 AD]; it seems that his Ethereal charges played a large part in his Redemption. More telling, however, was the evidence he brought with him. Once reinstated as a Seraph, he was debriefed by Judgement, War, and the Sword. His testimony [Razazel 1050 AD] confirms that Beleth often had difficulty manipulating her Ethereal charges, possibly because of their inherent ethical fiber. While their motivations were certainly different, many preferred to act in ways more according to Heaven's laws than Hell's. Still, it is not unusual for factions within Hell to have difficulty working together. Much of Razazel's testimony was discounted, save for that which was useful in military matters.

Later, in 1613 AD, a Seraph of Dreams caused a sensation when she restrained a Malakite of Dreams to keep him from attacking an Ethereal spirit. She claimed the spirit's claims that it was "harmless" and "not an evil thing at all" resonated as True to her. While none of the Most Holy spoke during the debates that surrounded the event and the subsequent trial, the Inquisition released the Seraph after only a brief questioning. The records of the Inquiry are sealed.

Most recently, careful observation of certain genus loci reveals them to embody many of the virtues with which humans typically imbue their communities [Margaret 1960 AD]. Most are as steadfast as Stone, strong in War when their peoples are threatened, and espouse the common Dreams of the nation. They seem to function almost as a Word-bound angel with respect to their location, although they are typically weaker. While some of the spirits also showed reprehensible traits (such as a desire for Unjust War), most seemed neutral or benign if not benevolent.

The above anecdotes give substance to a growing feeling that Ethereal spirits are not merely aberrations to be obliterated. The problem still remains, however, of how to distinguish between benevolent and malevolent Ethereal spirits. Such a method must be simple enough for a battle-maddened Virtue to use before a strike and robust enough that innocuous Ethereals can be reliably distinguished from malevolent ones. It is a tragedy when an innocent is destroyed as well as when evil is allowed to continue unchecked.

Mending and Dreams have been cooperating in an effort to find such a method. It is our hope that a reliable way of telling Ethereal friend from foe will assist in healing the tears made between the angels and the spirits after the Purity Crusade.

The Marches are best known as the womb of human Dreams. Indeed, the Archangel of Dreams recalls a time when there was nothing in the Marches except herself, the Archangel of Fear, and the dreams. It was only later that the Ethereal spirits began to form: totem animals, monsters of the darkness, fertility figures and their lover-sons. From this, and from the continual formation of genus loci and other Ethereals "of their times," it has been hypothesized that Ethereals are formed by human thought or worship.

We make a distinction. Given the nature of the Marches, and the Ethereal in general, we propose that Ethereal spirits are the result of human Dreams (or Nightmares). Most of the Ethereal "gods" have formed in areas ignorant of Celestial religions. That did not stop the humans living in those areas from needing an explanation of the world, from embodying their Hopes and Fears as deities. Into the current era, humans need to embody certain concepts not well-addressed by elements of Divine faiths. The genus loci are only the most well known examples of this phenomenon. With the rise of the idea of "nations" in the world, humans need a Symbol in which to clothe their national Dreams. Individual heroes (or villains) may become so closely associated with their virtues (or vices) that the collective unconscious of humanity creates them as Ethereal spirits. These Ethereals are a great collaborative Dream (or Nightmare) on the part of humans. It is the power that forms the dreamscapes, amplified and solidified by the sheer number of minds sharing the collective Dream.

Future Work: Dreams and Nightmares

Servitors of Dreams have long experience in determining Dream from Nightmare. Further research is planned to quantify these techniques, in the hopes of applying them to the identification of Ethereals. As the great utility of Dreams in the War effort is widely known, those that spring from beneficial Dreams should be protected, or at the very least left unmolested. The Malakim of the Marches can vent their aggression on those sprung from Nightmares.

We do not consider this new approach a total panacea for the Celestial-Ethereal conflict. Thorny questions still remain about those Ethereals which, although ethically aligned with Heaven, claim the Divinity which is God's alone. We do not pretend to have the answers to those questions.

What we hope to do is to provide a fast, effective way of determining potential allies from the great mass of Ethereals which is, in its entirety, considered a foe by some. Just as we pick out Soldiers from among humanity, we can find like-minded Ethereals to whom Hell is abhorrent and ally with them. Selfless, beneficial entities - Corporeal, Celestial, and Ethereal - are acting according to the will of God. Surely this is pleasing in His sight.

References
1. Uriel, Archangel of Purity. "A Call to Crusade." Speech made in 745 AD. Recorded in Most Influential Speeches of Heaven. Yves, ed. 1500 AD.

2. Blandine, Archangel of Dreams. "Continuing Repercussions of the Purity Crusade in the Marches." To be published in Proc TriPl Conf, 2001 AD.

3. Seraphim Council. "On the Redemption of a Renegade Balseraph of Nightmares," in Proc Seraph Cncl, 1050 AD.

4. Razazel, Seraph of Dreams. Personal testimony on activities of Nightmares, circa 1050 AD.

5. Margaret, Elohim of Dreams. "A Study of 20 Genus Loci Found in the Far Marches," in J Far Marches, 1960 AD.