The World Of The Ministry
AN INTRODUCTORY FIELD GUIDE FOR PROSPECTIVE AND NEWLY ADMITTED CABINET MEMBERS
MINISTRY OF OMEN & DESIRE
Ministry Headquarters
The Office Beneath
Emotional Underworld
DOCUMENT CLASSIFICATION: General Circulation
ISSUING OFFICE: Office of Cabinet Affairs
ARCHIVAL STATUS: ACTIVE
MOOD // 001
THE MINISTRY
The Ministry of Omen & Desire is a gothic institution ruling the Emotional Underworld. Our jurisdiction is broad and, according to several external authorities, largely self-appointed.
The Ministry observes, documents and investigates the forces that move beneath ordinary life: desire, devotion, envy, longing, hope, grief, obsession and more.
The quiet compulsions, the recurring patterns, and the things we pursue despite ourselves. This is the EMOTIONAL UNDERWORLD.
From Ministry Headquarters in The Office Beneath, shifts in the emotional atmosphere are monitored by a network of offices, bureaus, correspondents and other personnel whose activities do not need to concern you at this time.
When a matter is deemed worthy of investigation, a case is opened.
Evidence is gathered - and then the Ministry considers the findings, and then we send you (our Cabinet Members) the paperwork.
MOOD // 002
THE CABINET
The Cabinet is the Ministry's civilian body of members, correspondents, witnesses and interested parties. You may know them more simply as Cabinet Members.
No formal qualifications are required for appointment, but a working knowledge of the human condition is useful, though historically difficult to verify.
Curiosity is expected, a tolerance for ambiguity is strongly preferred, and an appreciation for beautiful paper will serve you well.
Once admitted, Cabinet Members are entered into The Dark Registry, the Ministry's official record of active membership, correspondence, issued Omens and matters presently under consideration.
Cabinet Members receive the Ministry's monthly correspondence and are invited to read, annotate, question, disagree, investigate and occasionally carry out instructions issued by Headquarters.
Private overthinking remains outside our regulatory authority. For now.
MOOD // 003
THE MONTHLY DISPATCH
Like any institution of unnecessary scale and questionable jurisdiction, the Ministry has a duty to keep its Cabinet properly briefed. Accordingly, once each month, Headquarters issues an official Ministry Dispatch to every active Cabinet Member.
Each Dispatch concerns one Matter Before the Cabinet: an emotional phenomenon that has attracted sufficient interest, disturbance or administrative concern to warrant formal investigation.
The Ministry investigates the subject for the Cabinet Members, and the findings are then assembled into a limited-edition collection of writing, artwork and ritual and sent by post.
Every Monthly Dispatch contains:
- THE CABINET BRIEFING_ The central document of the investigation.
- AN OMEN_ A limited-edition paper artwork created in response to the matter.
- THE RITUAL DIRECTIVE_ An instruction issued by the Bureau of Omens for Cabinet consideration and, where appropriate, execution.
MOOD // 004
THE CABINET BRIEFING
The Cabinet Briefing is the principal document issued in relation to each investigation. It contains the Ministry's research, observations, arguments, evidence and findings regarding the Matter Before the Cabinet.
Your cabinet briefing may include field notes, observations, contradictions, and questions it has no intention of answering.
It may contain the occasional institutional opinion - but Cabinet Members are not required to agree with the Ministry. In fact, unanimous agreement tends to make the Office of Internal Inquiry nervous.
You are encouraged to underline passages, annotate margins, argue with conclusions and add your own evidence.
The Ministry is not interested in issuing instructions for how a person ought to live. There are already quite enough organisations attempting that. We are interested in providing better material from which to think.
MOOD // FOUNDING MINISTER
BEHIND THE MINISTRY
Most Ministry personnel are best encountered through official channels. One exception must be made. Behind the bureaucracy is Torz Thompson, Founding Minister of the Ministry of Omen & Desire.
An artist and graphic designer based in Sydney, Australia, Torz created the Ministry to house a collection of longstanding obsessions that had become administratively difficult to manage elsewhere:
- gothic fashion
- mythology
- symbolism
- strange old books
- beautiful typography
- psychology
- art
- and the spectacular emotional complications of being human.
The Ministry became a place wherethis. could all occupy the same room, and where serious questions could be subjected to slightly ridiculous bureaucracy.
Every investigation is researched, written, art directed and assembled under the supervision of the Founding Minister.