DShomshak

"Jellybean Row," St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada.
 
 

Water that has slowly frozen as it slid down and folded in on itself. aka Vienetta 
 

Snipe! Although I wasn't going to use the Atomic Robo version of Tesla.
 
So my Galvano-Biology Professor will have to be: Rotwang!


 
And I need another pick to catch up.

Professor of Constructive and Reconstructive Surgery: Charles Atlas

Quote: "Let me prove in 7 days that I can make you a new man!"
 

 
So far more Mad Science than Magic, but I'm not the only one.
 

Option: Notorious Alumnus: Alexander Scriabin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Scriabin
 
Considering the importance of music to the Ars Hermetica, it should be no surprise that many students of the Paolini Institute become skilled musicians. Conversely, several well-known composers and musicians through history have been secret Hermetics. Or not so secret…
 
In life, Alexander Scriabin was better known as a virtuoso piano performer than as a composer. But he made no secret of his interest in Theosophy and the mystical theories of Rudolf Steiner. Some of his compositions, such as The Divine Poem and Prometheus: the Poem of Fire, had explicitly mystical themes. And his design for a “color organ” that correlated musical pitches with colors? Hermeticism 101. Scriabin sought to perform musical-magical workings on an epic scale, which would transform humanity. He not only strove to reach beyond the universe, he wanted to take the entire world with him.
 
So the Institute killed one of its most brilliant graduates.
 
It wasn’t done lightly. Magister Paolini conferred with faculty and other masters from Marsilio Ficino back to Orpheus. They agreed: Scriabin had to be stopped. For all things have their opposites: and as there is an All-Highest beyond the world, an Unmoved Movers, there is a contrary center of whirling motion; a drain as well as a source; a descent unto annihilation. As the Chaldaean Oracles warn the seeker beyond the world:
 
Step not down, therefore, to the Darkly-Shining World: beneath is spread the Abyss, forever formless, lightless, foul, joying in illusion, irrational, precipitous and sinuous, ceaselessly whirling around its own maimed depth, eternally wed to a shape inert, not breathing, and void.
 
[Aside: Dang, I wish I could write lines like that.]
 
And it was all in Scriabin’s music. Ecstasy was become madness. Well was his Sonata #9 called The Black Mass. His music was becoming, well, eldritch.
 
It was a well-executed… execution. A pimple on Scriabin’s lip. A nick to the pimple while shaving. And the infection spread into fatal septicemia.
 
Afterward, the Institute collected and destroyed Scriabin’s unpublished and incomplete works — especially the plans for his climactic working Mysterium. They saved the world.
 
But the rumor persists among Institute students that not all of Scriabin’s work was destroyed. That the mad composer’s own piano, modified and consecrated for his special purposes, is still hidden in some secret vault. And that when one should be alone in the Institute at the dead of night, sometimes one can hear faint strains of weird piano music carried through the walls. Do not try to find the source.
 
Dean Shomshak

Hermetic theory describes music as an important and powerful way to (literally) attune the soul and spirit to celestial energies. Marsilion Ficino and Fabio Paolini both wrote extensively on music theory, both mundane and arcane. Paolini Institute employ music in their magic rites, using instruments ranging from classical lyres to electric guitars.
 
Ah, but who should teach this important subject? Pythagoras, first promulgator of cosmic musical harmony, is taken. There is historic record of Paolini holding an extensive debate on whether the mythic Orpheus really could have charmed stones and trees into motion, and if so, how.
 
But for music designed to evoke the power of the planets, the choice is obvious. If you haven’t heard of the man, you’ve certainly heard his orchestral suite, The Planets.
 
Professor: Gustav Holst
Specialty: Musical Magic/Magical Music
 
 
A few tangential points:
 
While hostility between Science and Magic is a common trope, Hermetics have never seen it so. Historically, Hermetic notions of force were entangled with the birth of modern science. Even though astronomy reveals worlds utterly unlike the mystic celestial realms that Hermetics visit, these too are entangled in ways the Institute still labors to understand. And on a practical level, Institute graduates have good reason to be embedded in NASA and other deep space exploration programs. There my be more about their reasons later.
 
The Planets includes movements for Uranus and Neptune, the planets unknown to Neoplatonists and Hermetics. Or so conventional history supposes. These are subjects for advanced classes.
 
And finally, whenever Institute faculty and students must gather for group rites, especially those involving music, every participant and audience member gets a cough drop beforehand!
 
Dean Shomshak

Hermetic theory describes music as an important and powerful way to (literally) attune the soul and spirit to celestial energies. Marsilion Ficino and Fabio Paolini both wrote extensively on music theory, both mundane and arcane. Paolini Institute employ music in their magic rites, using instruments ranging from classical lyres to electric guitars.
 
Ah, but who should teach this important subject? Pythagoras, first promulgator of cosmic musical harmony, is taken. There is historic record of Paolini holding an extensive debate on whether the mythic Orpheus really could have charmed stones and trees into motion, and if so, how.
 
But for music designed to evoke the power of the planets, the choice is obvious. If you haven’t heard of the man, you’ve certainly heard his orchestral suite, The Planets.
 
Professor: Gustav Holst
Specialty: Musical Magic/Magical Music
 
 
A few tangential points:
 
While hostility between Science and Magic is a common trope, Hermetics have never seen it so. Historically, Hermetic notions of force were entangled with the birth of modern science. Even though astronomy reveals worlds utterly unlike the mystic celestial realms that Hermetics visit, these too are entangled in ways the Institute still labors to understand. And on a practical level, Institute graduates have good reason to be embedded in NASA and other deep space exploration programs. There my be more about their reasons later.
 
The Planets includes movements for Uranus and Neptune, the planets unknown to Neoplatonists and Hermetics. Or so conventional history supposes. These are subjects for advanced classes.
 
And finally, whenever Institute faculty and students must gather for group rites, especially those involving music, every participant and audience member gets a cough drop beforehand!
 
Dean Shomshak

"Are all Star Elves like that? So.. reserved?"
"I wouldn't know, I haven't met all Star Elves."
"Funny."
"Besides, our Professor of psychic information exchange and shielding class is only half star elf."
"Right the ability to merge minds is  creepy as hell, he could at least be a bit more..amiable. I mean, why is he in this department? "That Needs of the Many stuff..." Does a guy like that even really know what friendship is?" The two students continued to walk off away from their class.
 
Meanwhile, hearing them quite clearly through the building window they had not considered, the professor in question looked about his office mementos and straightened a portrait of a Captain he'd once served under long ago. A younger him would have lamented their lack of reasoning and how far sound might travel while at the same time considering their views of him relatively inconsequential. It might still be logical to do so, but then, the Professor had learned decades ago that Logic, while crucial, was the beginning of wisdom, not the end of it. His magical specialty involved the sharing of thought, ideas, and memory... sometimes literally, and he made sure his students learned to use that responsibly. But if his students had actually asked him what he knew of friendship?
 
He glanced at the Portrait again, and held up his hand in finger splayed greeting, his memory going back across the years. As he recalled the words, "You have been, and always shall be, my friend"  Logic told him that friendship should terminate, naturally, when a shorter lived comrade came to the end of their cycle by age, violence, accident, or ill health. It should wither and fade. Experience? Experience had proven that hypothesis wrong.
 
Professor Spock gave the smallest of smiles, most who did not know him would not think of it as a smile at all, stopped his salute to the painting, and straightened his wizard robes. He had another class to teach coming in soon, and the lessons  would perhaps include that quantity did not trump quality.
 
PIck: Professor Spock, teacher of Psychic Information transference and shielding, one on one rapports, and patron of the school's three dimensional chess club
 

The students are not surprised when the teaching assistant wheels the marble bust into the classroom. Their professor this day is Julianus the Theurgist. Bodily, Julianus is long dead. His mystical ascension of the celestial planes, however, enabled his soul to continue after death as a eudaimon, a good spirit, to guide others on the path to Heaven. Moreover, the book written by his father Julianus the Chaldaean, the Chaldaean Oracles, tells how to attract planetary spirits and daimones into consecrated effigies, called telestika. The Paolini Institute holds numerous telestika, though Julianus is the only one that teaches. Though the stone does not move, it speaks, as if a sighing wind were shaped into a light baritone voice.
 
“Welcome, students. You have already learned the rudiments of evoking spirits. This class shall teach you how to create new spirits of your own, wrought from the raw energies of the planets, and bind them to your service as familiars. We call these familiars Iynges to distinguish them from other spirits — though they have recently gained another name you perhaps know better.
 
“The process requires two essential tools, in addition to the normal tools and procedures of Hermetic magic. First, you must create a picture of your Iynx. This shall preferably be small, for ease of use; when I lived, we painted miniature images upon ivory. In this modern age, you may paint or draw your spirit’s likeness at a larger scale and reproduce it at smaller scale on cardboard.
 
“The second tool is a round case, a bulla, of gilded metal engraved with glyphs of power and filled with substances of planetary affinities. At the conclusion of the long rites to shape your Iynx, you shall touch the bulla to the newly-shaped spirit, say the name you have chosen for it, and so bind it in that form, that name, and to serve you. You may wish then to wear the bulla on a cord, as a pendant, for convenience.
 
“When you desire to call upon your Iynx, take out your image of the spirit and gaze upon it. You whirl the bulla on its cord — it is now a strophados, an image in this world of the whirling motion of the heavens. Speak the spirit’s name with the command, Dialégo eséna! You, I select! And it shall appear, ready to work your will.
 
“My assistant shall now demonstrate, calling an Iynx I shaped and bound in life. Behold.”
 
The assistant removes a small card from her pocket and takes the golden ball hung on a fine chain around the neck of the bust. She whirls the ball over her head and cries, “Πίκαχυ, διαλέγω εσένα!” Students’ eyes widen as they realize what they just heard, as the form of a pudgy, mouse-like creature with a lightning-bolt tail appears floating in the air with a halo of sparks…
 
“Pikachu, I choose you!”

Though the stone lips cannot move, everyone hears the smile in Julianus’ voice. “We may all thank Magister Diggs for his… innovative approach to presenting the Hermetic Mysteries in a form the common folk can understand. And, incidentally, for a licensing agreement that makes this Institute largely self-financing. Now that’s magic.”
 
Professor: Julianus the Theurgist, specialist in Neoplatonic philosophy, spirit-creation, and Pokémon

And yes, the final exam involves the students pitting their Iynges in battle against each other. The contest, held in the university’s sports stadium, is always well attended.
 
Dean Shomshak
(And no, that isn't a portrait of Julianus the Theurgist. It's the Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate. But he was into Neoplatonism, and is more than okay with having his image used as a telestika.)

The students are not surprised when the teaching assistant wheels the marble bust into the classroom. Their professor this day is Julianus the Theurgist. Bodily, Julianus is long dead. His mystical ascension of the celestial planes, however, enabled his soul to continue after death as a eudaimon, a good spirit, to guide others on the path to Heaven. Moreover, the book written by his father Julianus the Chaldaean, the Chaldaean Oracles, tells how to attract planetary spirits and daimones into consecrated effigies, called telestika. The Paolini Institute holds numerous telestika, though Julianus is the only one that teaches. Though the stone does not move, it speaks, as if a sighing wind were shaped into a light baritone voice.
 
“Welcome, students. You have already learned the rudiments of evoking spirits. This class shall teach you how to create new spirits of your own, wrought from the raw energies of the planets, and bind them to your service as familiars. We call these familiars Iynges to distinguish them from other spirits — though they have recently gained another name you perhaps know better.
 
“The process requires two essential tools, in addition to the normal tools and procedures of Hermetic magic. First, you must create a picture of your Iynx. This shall preferably be small, for ease of use; when I lived, we painted miniature images upon ivory. In this modern age, you may paint or draw your spirit’s likeness at a larger scale and reproduce it at smaller scale on cardboard.
 
“The second tool is a round case, a bulla, of gilded metal engraved with glyphs of power and filled with substances of planetary affinities. At the conclusion of the long rites to shape your Iynx, you shall touch the bulla to the newly-shaped spirit, say the name you have chosen for it, and so bind it in that form, that name, and to serve you. You may wish then to wear the bulla on a cord, as a pendant, for convenience.
 
“When you desire to call upon your Iynx, take out your image of the spirit and gaze upon it. You whirl the bulla on its cord — it is now a strophados, an image in this world of the whirling motion of the heavens. Speak the spirit’s name with the command, Dialégo eséna! You, I select! And it shall appear, ready to work your will.
 
“My assistant shall now demonstrate, calling an Iynx I shaped and bound in life. Behold.”
 
The assistant removes a small card from her pocket and takes the golden ball hung on a fine chain around the neck of the bust. She whirls the ball over her head and cries, “Πίκαχυ, διαλέγω εσένα!” Students’ eyes widen as they realize what they just heard, as the form of a pudgy, mouse-like creature with a lightning-bolt tail appears floating in the air with a halo of sparks…
 
“Pikachu, I choose you!”

Though the stone lips cannot move, everyone hears the smile in Julianus’ voice. “We may all thank Magister Diggs for his… innovative approach to presenting the Hermetic Mysteries in a form the common folk can understand. And, incidentally, for a licensing agreement that makes this Institute largely self-financing. Now that’s magic.”
 
Professor: Julianus the Theurgist, specialist in Neoplatonic philosophy, spirit-creation, and Pokémon

And yes, the final exam involves the students pitting their Iynges in battle against each other. The contest, held in the university’s sports stadium, is always well attended.
 
Dean Shomshak
(And no, that isn't a portrait of Julianus the Theurgist. It's the Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate. But he was into Neoplatonism, and is more than okay with having his image used as a telestika.)

The students are not surprised when the teaching assistant wheels the marble bust into the classroom. Their professor this day is Julianus the Theurgist. Bodily, Julianus is long dead. His mystical ascension of the celestial planes, however, enabled his soul to continue after death as a eudaimon, a good spirit, to guide others on the path to Heaven. Moreover, the book written by his father Julianus the Chaldaean, the Chaldaean Oracles, tells how to attract planetary spirits and daimones into consecrated effigies, called telestika. The Paolini Institute holds numerous telestika, though Julianus is the only one that teaches. Though the stone does not move, it speaks, as if a sighing wind were shaped into a light baritone voice.
 
“Welcome, students. You have already learned the rudiments of evoking spirits. This class shall teach you how to create new spirits of your own, wrought from the raw energies of the planets, and bind them to your service as familiars. We call these familiars Iynges to distinguish them from other spirits — though they have recently gained another name you perhaps know better.
 
“The process requires two essential tools, in addition to the normal tools and procedures of Hermetic magic. First, you must create a picture of your Iynx. This shall preferably be small, for ease of use; when I lived, we painted miniature images upon ivory. In this modern age, you may paint or draw your spirit’s likeness at a larger scale and reproduce it at smaller scale on cardboard.
 
“The second tool is a round case, a bulla, of gilded metal engraved with glyphs of power and filled with substances of planetary affinities. At the conclusion of the long rites to shape your Iynx, you shall touch the bulla to the newly-shaped spirit, say the name you have chosen for it, and so bind it in that form, that name, and to serve you. You may wish then to wear the bulla on a cord, as a pendant, for convenience.
 
“When you desire to call upon your Iynx, take out your image of the spirit and gaze upon it. You whirl the bulla on its cord — it is now a strophados, an image in this world of the whirling motion of the heavens. Speak the spirit’s name with the command, Dialégo eséna! You, I select! And it shall appear, ready to work your will.
 
“My assistant shall now demonstrate, calling an Iynx I shaped and bound in life. Behold.”
 
The assistant removes a small card from her pocket and takes the golden ball hung on a fine chain around the neck of the bust. She whirls the ball over her head and cries, “Πίκαχυ, διαλέγω εσένα!” Students’ eyes widen as they realize what they just heard, as the form of a pudgy, mouse-like creature with a lightning-bolt tail appears floating in the air with a halo of sparks…
 
“Pikachu, I choose you!”

Though the stone lips cannot move, everyone hears the smile in Julianus’ voice. “We may all thank Magister Diggs for his… innovative approach to presenting the Hermetic Mysteries in a form the common folk can understand. And, incidentally, for a licensing agreement that makes this Institute largely self-financing. Now that’s magic.”
 
Professor: Julianus the Theurgist, specialist in Neoplatonic philosophy, spirit-creation, and Pokémon

And yes, the final exam involves the students pitting their Iynges in battle against each other. The contest, held in the university’s sports stadium, is always well attended.
 
Dean Shomshak
(And no, that isn't a portrait of Julianus the Theurgist. It's the Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate. But he was into Neoplatonism, and is more than okay with having his image used as a telestika.)

The students are not surprised when the teaching assistant wheels the marble bust into the classroom. Their professor this day is Julianus the Theurgist. Bodily, Julianus is long dead. His mystical ascension of the celestial planes, however, enabled his soul to continue after death as a eudaimon, a good spirit, to guide others on the path to Heaven. Moreover, the book written by his father Julianus the Chaldaean, the Chaldaean Oracles, tells how to attract planetary spirits and daimones into consecrated effigies, called telestika. The Paolini Institute holds numerous telestika, though Julianus is the only one that teaches. Though the stone does not move, it speaks, as if a sighing wind were shaped into a light baritone voice.
 
“Welcome, students. You have already learned the rudiments of evoking spirits. This class shall teach you how to create new spirits of your own, wrought from the raw energies of the planets, and bind them to your service as familiars. We call these familiars Iynges to distinguish them from other spirits — though they have recently gained another name you perhaps know better.
 
“The process requires two essential tools, in addition to the normal tools and procedures of Hermetic magic. First, you must create a picture of your Iynx. This shall preferably be small, for ease of use; when I lived, we painted miniature images upon ivory. In this modern age, you may paint or draw your spirit’s likeness at a larger scale and reproduce it at smaller scale on cardboard.
 
“The second tool is a round case, a bulla, of gilded metal engraved with glyphs of power and filled with substances of planetary affinities. At the conclusion of the long rites to shape your Iynx, you shall touch the bulla to the newly-shaped spirit, say the name you have chosen for it, and so bind it in that form, that name, and to serve you. You may wish then to wear the bulla on a cord, as a pendant, for convenience.
 
“When you desire to call upon your Iynx, take out your image of the spirit and gaze upon it. You whirl the bulla on its cord — it is now a strophados, an image in this world of the whirling motion of the heavens. Speak the spirit’s name with the command, Dialégo eséna! You, I select! And it shall appear, ready to work your will.
 
“My assistant shall now demonstrate, calling an Iynx I shaped and bound in life. Behold.”
 
The assistant removes a small card from her pocket and takes the golden ball hung on a fine chain around the neck of the bust. She whirls the ball over her head and cries, “Πίκαχυ, διαλέγω εσένα!” Students’ eyes widen as they realize what they just heard, as the form of a pudgy, mouse-like creature with a lightning-bolt tail appears floating in the air with a halo of sparks…
 
“Pikachu, I choose you!”

Though the stone lips cannot move, everyone hears the smile in Julianus’ voice. “We may all thank Magister Diggs for his… innovative approach to presenting the Hermetic Mysteries in a form the common folk can understand. And, incidentally, for a licensing agreement that makes this Institute largely self-financing. Now that’s magic.”
 
Professor: Julianus the Theurgist, specialist in Neoplatonic philosophy, spirit-creation, and Pokémon

And yes, the final exam involves the students pitting their Iynges in battle against each other. The contest, held in the university’s sports stadium, is always well attended.
 
Dean Shomshak
(And no, that isn't a portrait of Julianus the Theurgist. It's the Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate. But he was into Neoplatonism, and is more than okay with having his image used as a telestika.)

The students are not surprised when the teaching assistant wheels the marble bust into the classroom. Their professor this day is Julianus the Theurgist. Bodily, Julianus is long dead. His mystical ascension of the celestial planes, however, enabled his soul to continue after death as a eudaimon, a good spirit, to guide others on the path to Heaven. Moreover, the book written by his father Julianus the Chaldaean, the Chaldaean Oracles, tells how to attract planetary spirits and daimones into consecrated effigies, called telestika. The Paolini Institute holds numerous telestika, though Julianus is the only one that teaches. Though the stone does not move, it speaks, as if a sighing wind were shaped into a light baritone voice.
 
“Welcome, students. You have already learned the rudiments of evoking spirits. This class shall teach you how to create new spirits of your own, wrought from the raw energies of the planets, and bind them to your service as familiars. We call these familiars Iynges to distinguish them from other spirits — though they have recently gained another name you perhaps know better.
 
“The process requires two essential tools, in addition to the normal tools and procedures of Hermetic magic. First, you must create a picture of your Iynx. This shall preferably be small, for ease of use; when I lived, we painted miniature images upon ivory. In this modern age, you may paint or draw your spirit’s likeness at a larger scale and reproduce it at smaller scale on cardboard.
 
“The second tool is a round case, a bulla, of gilded metal engraved with glyphs of power and filled with substances of planetary affinities. At the conclusion of the long rites to shape your Iynx, you shall touch the bulla to the newly-shaped spirit, say the name you have chosen for it, and so bind it in that form, that name, and to serve you. You may wish then to wear the bulla on a cord, as a pendant, for convenience.
 
“When you desire to call upon your Iynx, take out your image of the spirit and gaze upon it. You whirl the bulla on its cord — it is now a strophados, an image in this world of the whirling motion of the heavens. Speak the spirit’s name with the command, Dialégo eséna! You, I select! And it shall appear, ready to work your will.
 
“My assistant shall now demonstrate, calling an Iynx I shaped and bound in life. Behold.”
 
The assistant removes a small card from her pocket and takes the golden ball hung on a fine chain around the neck of the bust. She whirls the ball over her head and cries, “Πίκαχυ, διαλέγω εσένα!” Students’ eyes widen as they realize what they just heard, as the form of a pudgy, mouse-like creature with a lightning-bolt tail appears floating in the air with a halo of sparks…
 
“Pikachu, I choose you!”

Though the stone lips cannot move, everyone hears the smile in Julianus’ voice. “We may all thank Magister Diggs for his… innovative approach to presenting the Hermetic Mysteries in a form the common folk can understand. And, incidentally, for a licensing agreement that makes this Institute largely self-financing. Now that’s magic.”
 
Professor: Julianus the Theurgist, specialist in Neoplatonic philosophy, spirit-creation, and Pokémon

And yes, the final exam involves the students pitting their Iynges in battle against each other. The contest, held in the university’s sports stadium, is always well attended.
 
Dean Shomshak
(And no, that isn't a portrait of Julianus the Theurgist. It's the Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate. But he was into Neoplatonism, and is more than okay with having his image used as a telestika.)

Next up for the Misrepresentation Conservatory
 
Professor: Willow Ufgood (Willow)
Specialty: Slight of Hand and Psychological Manipulation
 
... and then the High Aldwyn says, "The bones choose *you* Burglekutt." The class responded with a wave of laughter.
 
"Now the High Aldwyn was an excellent sorcerer. He could do actual divination, but he knew when it was better to just *appear* to use magic. Magic is a tool, and good wizards are masters at using that tool. Great wizards know it isn't the only tool and know when it is the wrong tool. I learned that the hard way when a disappearing pig trick succeeded where a petrification spell failed. And that leads us to our first lesson: students, grab your piglets!
 

 

The Greater Chickamauga Department of Magical Healing   Professor: Dr. Frederick Frankenstein   'From that fateful day when stinking bits of slime first crawled from the sea and shouted to the cold stars, "I am man.", our greatest dread has always been the knowledge of our mortality. But tonight, we shall hurl the gauntlet of [magic] into the frightful face of death itself. Tonight, we shall ascend into the heavens. We shall mock the earthquake. We shall command the thunders, and penetrate into the very womb of impervious nature herself.'        

Dr. Willy Wonka is an eccentric genius that is much older than you think. With a specialty in confections, his knowledge of chocolate is unsurpassed. He has worked with Miracle Max on occasion in an effort to make Professor Max’s work more palatable. Students alternatively love him or are terrified of him. His student survival graduation rate is above average, almost 90%!  

 
 
Art by Todd Nauck 
 

The students left their first day in Consensual Interactive Imagineering class stunned. At first some had scoffed at the tacky props littered about the area. Still, a class was a class and they decided to play along with the kindly and soft spoken professor.. and suddenly they were in a kingdom of quirky characters, Kings and Catfolk, castles and trolleys. It lowered their guard to talk and add to the experience. They weren't just spectators, but citizens who could affect other citizens, to get to know them, and learn better about themselves.
 
"That felt so damn real.." One student said
"it was real, at least... the truths it revealed were" Another student corrected.
"The man himself called it a Land of Make believe, but... yeah" the other said, "I think I get it."
 
 Pick: Professor Fred Rogers, who excels in classes of empathic magic, neighborhood ethics, and , of course, Make Believe.
 

Woman visits National Trust venues to sample scones. It took ten years
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-64822669
 
If you know me you know how I feel about scones
 
Hidden corridor in Egyptian pyramid seen for first time
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-64825526

Just a little fiction to elaborate on the first pick. 
 
"The Puck Institute of Culinary Arts at Magus University is a world leader in magical cuisine instruction."
 
“Whether it’s a basic love potion or elven Lembas bread or intoxicating Frobscottle, food and drink have long been a beloved medium for the containment of eldritch power.  At the Puck Institute, we believe that it is not enough to contain enchantment, it must also taste good. Potions do not have to taste like medicine. Those days are long gone. Students learn how to forage for the freshest herbs and how to butcher the trickiest unicorns. (With apologies to Dean Sparkle.) Our graduates leave knowing how to make the finest cakes as well as griffin steaks. Welcome to The Puck Institute of Culinary Arts!”
 
- Dean Alton Brown, orientation address
 

Department:  The College of Creatures and Treasure
 
Dean: Gary Gygax
 

Oh, why not.
 
University Department: The Misrepresentation Conservatory
Dean: The Wizard of Oz
Official Motto: Vide debilus quando fortus es. Vide fortus quando debilus es.
Unofficial Motto: If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with b******t.
 
"Give it back, Pinhead!" Dean Clarke stormed into the office.
"I will accept Dean Diggs. Or Oz, if you say it kindly. Now, I have no idea what you are talking about." The little man clinked a spoon in his tea.
"Someone broke into our school and stole a cutting edge holoprojector. Give. It. Back."
The little man pursed his lips and clinked a little longer, then took a deep sniff of his tea. "I'm afraid you department uses such technical jargon, we may not understand each other. What is a Halo Protector? Sounds like something for the Hermetics. They love halos."
"Don't give me that." Dean Clarke took a moment to breathe. Never argue angry. "Our Holoprojector. A piece of artifice that can cast illusions. It went missing, and some recent cleaning faculty disappeared too. This has every indication of your departments skullduggery. Your lot love our technomancy to back your little ... feints."
"You wound me sir. I am Oz, the Great and Mighty! I have no need of your little trinkets." He set the tea on the counter. "And with that, good day, Arthur!" A burst of smoke, and the little man was gone. The other man stormed forward and started stomping around. "Get out here! I'll find your trapdoor and test broken robots on you!"
 
Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs (O.Z.P.I.N.H.E.A.D. or Oz to his friends and Pinhead to nobody, thank you) heads the Misrepresentation Conservatory. They train wizards to manage their reputations, to let their appearance as weak or almighty be a strategic decision, not a prison. Oz himself specializes in public relations and stagecraft. He doesn't have any magic, but handles his position in a world of wizards with ease.
 

 

And the radio tells me it's 10 a.m.!
 
DEPARTMENT: The Paolini Institute of Hermetic Studies
 
Some people assert that the feelings and conceptions of our souls can by the force of the imagination be rendered volatile and corporeal, so that, in accordance with their quality, they can be carried up to certain planets and, affected and strengthened by the power of the planet, they will come down again to us and will obey us in whatever we want.
— Fabio Paolini, Hebdomades
 

 
Welcome, student, to the Paolini Institute! Here you will learn the mystery and mastery of Hermetic Theurgy. The Institute dates back to the 17th century of the Common Era, but Hermetic magic goes back much further. The Ars Hermetica received its modern formulation from Late Medieval to Renaissance magi such as Marsilio Ficino, Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim and our Institute’s founder, Fabio Paolini. You may have encountered their works before — likely, given your choice of studies — but you may well come to know them much better in the course of your studies.
 
As you should know, Hermetic magic begins with the premise that the planets and signs of astrology (including the Sun and Moon) radiate subtle, mystic influences. Unlike the vulgar and ignorant astrologers, however, a Hermetic Magus does not seek to forecast the future based on planetary positions. He (or she, ahem, this is the Twenty-First Century) concentrates those energies through their affinities to colors, odors, musical tones, metals, gemstones, plants and animals, the elements, and symbolic images such as Tarot cards or the gods of myth. To these we add the ineffable names of God and His angels, and other words and sigils of power.
 
In this way you may evoke spirits of the planets and bind them to your will, consecrate and imbue items of powerful magic, and even enter the spiritual realms of those same planets. Ultimately you may hope to ascend the celestial realms as if they were a ladder, to go beyond them — passing beyond the stars to the Primum Mobile — the veritable Throne of God — and obtain mastery of Time itself. For the heavens are the primordial clack and calendar embedded in the Universe itself and are thus the means to comprehend and obtain that supreme power.
 
Just to clear up a common misunderstanding: The spirits we call upon are not demons (except in the classical sense of daimones). We do not summon the fiends of Hell. By which I mean, yes we can, and sometimes do, but only if is absolutely necessary. Any attempt to summon demons without the supervision of a master shall result in immediate dismissal from this Institute.
 
MOTTO (translated from the Latin): The Lord by wisdom founded the Earth, by understanding he established the heavens. (Proverbs 3:19)
 
The entrance hall of the Institute’s building features a large circle of dark blue slate inlaid with a Greek cross of golden sandstone and stars of white marble, with the motto written in a band of mosaic around the rim. The cross and Bible verse help to contain something the Institute very much wants not to be released.
 
Dean Shomshak
 

DEAN: Fabio Paolini
 
Students at the Institute receive the great honor of meeting its founder, Fabio Paolini himself, who still directs the school as its Magister Ludi (schoolmaster) more than 300 years after his death. No, this is not some horrible, grotesque necromancy (wrong department!) Paolini achieved the greatest feat of Hermetic magic by ascending the Celestial Ladder, passing the sphere of the stars, and reached the Primum Mobile. In so doing, he learned time travel. He carries a brass disk inscribed with the signs of the Zodiac, with concentric rings for the seven planets of classical astrology. By setting the rings so the sigil-inscribed gemstone representing each planet are in the configuration the actual planets would have at a given time, he moves to that time.
 
However, Magister Paolini is not immortal. He is not even 300 years old. Whenever he meetsw himself in his own past, he effectively splits to create another version of himself, which then can travel in time. By now there’s at least a dozen of him jumping backwards and forwards in time, fulfilling the duties of headmaster in shifts, never more than a few months at a time. This is terribly confusing for the other professors, since the Paolini who just stepped into the office might never have met them before, or only know them from their own future. The Paolinis keep extensive notes in their office so they can keep abreast of who’s currently in the Institute, and what problems other time-versions of himm know are about to occur because that version of him learned about them in the future.
 
Magister Paolini can carry other people through time. In this manner, be sometimes brings Hermetic masters of the past to lecture at the Institute, or takes grad students back to colloquia in the past. In this manner, students from across the centuries can meet the founders of the Ars Hermetica, and each other.
 
People who want to curry favor with Paolini sometimes address him as Ipsissimus — “Ultimate Master,” more or less, a title he earned by his transcendent magic. But he’s no fool, and recognizes the flattery. Around the Institute, people usually address him as Magister. He rolls his eyes when students call him “Doctor,” and then break into giggles — though that title, too, is precisely accurate.
 
Mundane history doesn’t know, or at least care, much about Fabio Paolini. (See his Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pio_Fabio_Paolini) He is on record more as a painter than a mystic or magus. One of his particular skills is to cast spells by painting a scene incorporating symbolically appropriate gods, plants, animals, and other images. Such allegorical “emblems” were a common genre in the Renaissance, but are little known today.
 
Dean Shomshak

Department: The Greater Chickamauga School of Magical Healing
 
Dean: Miracle Max
 
"Mostly dead is slightly alive."
 

I have been asked to post for Enforcer84 as he has an engagement.
 
He selects
Location/Domain: The Ada Lovelace School of Magitechnology 
(Also known as the College of Artifice)
Dean: Arthur C Clarke