Membership

The principle

Everything about belonging is public: who belongs, the bar to belong, and what each member did — and still does — to hold their place. The judgment of who gets in happens privately, but the criteria and the process are open.

Public criteria + secret selection is how exclusive clubs quietly launder bias. We don’t do that here. You can keep the deliberation private; you cannot keep the rules private.

The bar

“A living example of what’s good” means two things, together:

• You already live the morals. Demonstrably, not aspirationally — the floor, met.
• You already carry the work of at least one Charge. In deed, sustained, present-tense. A candidate who could not be awarded a single Charge does not meet the bar.

Membership is not for people who intend to be good; it’s for people whose life already shows it. You are invited for who you have already been. The bar is meant to be hard — if most people clear it, belonging means nothing.

Sponsorship and admission

• Sponsorship. A candidate must be vouched for by an existing member who knows their work first-hand and seconded by one other member. The sponsor vouches in good faith for the candidate’s record; a candidate who isn’t admitted is no mark against the sponsor — not everyone worthy is known yet, and not every nomination lands.
• Admission. The candidate’s prospective sect council decides, on published grounds, by majority vote, producing a Decision Record. The deliberation may be private; the criteria and the process never are.

Induction

Once admitted, a member is brought in through the rites: they swear the creed, are named, and take up the first Charge they were admitted for. The ceremony is private; that it happened, and on what grounds, is not.

The public page

Each member gets a public page: their photo, what they did to earn their place, what they continue to do, and every watch they have ever held — each shown with its status (Active, Dark, or Retired; see Charges).

A tension to stay honest about: the public page proves it’s not vanity — but it also creates a status object. Guard against people doing good for the page. Reward sustained, present-tense work, not a one-time résumé.