Finally! It is here! A lot to dig into here...
For the moment I am quite satisfied with sorting through the documents and deciding on where to perform the ritual, so the world is safe from my curiosity - for now.
The Artifact itself is simply gorgeous! As I have received The Reveal quite a while before The Artifact, I do have everything that would be needed to proceed.
As for the ritual:
I have yet to perform it. None of the text indicates that the Ritual must commence on a specific date, would you agree? The only important date throughout the history of The Demon Jar seems to be Walpurgisnacht, the date at which the jar ist best left alone altogether.
Regardless of the ritual, there are a number of questions yet to be answered.
First and foremost: As always, I am very interested in who the person or persons communicating through the Experience actually are. At first glance, there seem to be three parties involved:
There is of course the late Dr. Maltese, whose handwriting is found on the margins of the often-rejected paper regarding the new translation of the Warren Tablet, and, more prominently, on the diary pages and monastery diagram. Then, there are The Daughters of Namaah; they have clearly survived into the modern day in some shape or form, and they are using the MPC to split up their cache of Demon Jars in order to protect them. The printed letter is signed by them, and the Ritual instructions and the warning affixed to the jar itself are likely authored by one of their number. It is the third party here that I find most intriguing - mostly because we know nothing about them. Their handwriting appears on the circle diagram, on the margins of the ritual instructions and the two pieces of paper accompanying the ritual supplies. They speak of the Daughters in the third person, have performed the ritual and seem to refer to the recipient as "one who follows me". I assume this person could be one of the "agents" referred to in the Warren Tablet translation, who were in charge of renewing the seal once a year until the incident of 2015. Or maybe The Curator or one of his Coterie performed the ritual once and added the helpful remarks to the instructions?
I have touched on this before, I believe, and those among us who are not entirely aware of the practices and customs of the Mysterious Package Company as described in the second volume of Curios & Conundrums be warned: The following passage of text includes musings on that topic.
I have always wondered if in cases where The Artifact is but one out of a cache of identical pieces (as opposed to a unique item), the Company would still seed the cache with reproductions of the artifacts in question. It must be in their interest to spread the real artifacts all over the world as quickly as possible, but in order to effectively hide the items that do hold actual significance, they would still have to distribute reproductions alongside the originals.
As an aside, the number of jars must be quite formidable; I would doubt that The Mysterious Package Company in its infancy would have been able to handle the sheer volume:
I should assume that the phrase "since before the land was called Floralia" contains a small mistake on the part of Dr. Maltese. I was completely unable to find any region or land by that name. There was, however, an ancient Roman festival to honour the goddess Flora, that bears similarities to other May festivities and had been celebrated around the end of August and the beginning of May. According to a number of sources around the internet, annual celebrations of Floralia began in 173 BCE. Assuming that the Daughters have been performing the Ritual annually since at least then and until the final night of the ritual. The steeple of the monastery was supposedly destroyed in 1503, which seems to fit the description from the Warren tablet. Assuming that the Daughters were active at least during those years, were successfull in binding a part of the demon each time and did not miss one year, there should be at least 1676 genuine Demon Jars, minus the ones that were shattered in the 2015 incident.
About the 2015 incident and the vessel of the Demon:
Out of curiosity, I would like to know whatever happened to the people who fell victim to the demon. Was the ritual fatal to the vessel, or were they let go after the flesh of their palm was removes? Apparently, Dr. Maltese was not let go.
It seems obvious that the proximity to the jars during Walpurgisnacht made Maltese fall under the thrall of the demon and compelled him to shatter its prison. He did partially succeed: shattered ceramic jars and bent iron cages were found in the secret chamber. The ones that remained intact, however, were not mentioned in the newspaper clipping; the reporting did mention instead that items had been removed. Little more than a year later, the Daughters approached the Company, the remaining jars safely in their possession. Did the demon kill Theodore Maltese before he could free it from its prison? Or did the Daughters interrupt the possessed man, killed him and took the remaining jars with them? What if we were to falter in our duty as guardians? They say they do not know who we are, but can they be trusted?
These are just some of my initial thoughts on this mailing, and yet there is so much more. Just a few remaining questions:
What do the annotations on the diary pages say? They seem to be in various aramaic scripts, with the first one looking distinctly hebrew. I did feed the characters into several online translators, but did not receive a satisfying translation.
What exactly happened in 1930 at the Thingstätte? As I have mentioned in the discussion about the first mailing, construction did not begin until 1934. On the other hand, the national socialists claimed the theatre had been constructed on the site of an ancient germanic cultic site as part of their Blut und Boden propaganda, which did have mystical overtones.
What is the significance of the 600 moons mentioned in the incantation and as an annotation on the translation of the Warren tablet by Dr. Maltese (referred to there as 50 years)? Will the sigil hold for fifty years even if the ritual is not performed? Will the physical sigil on the jar have to be renewed once fifty years have passed and the ritual has been performed fifty times?
So much to do. This Experience was really worth the money. Imagine receiving this without prior knowledge!
A personal bonus for me is in the fact that the sites described in the documents are not too far away. I will definitely go there some time to see the place for myself, and I have half a mind to spend Walpurgisnacht there in 2018 - apparently it is quite the event these days...