The Besselian Prophecy

By  SAMUEL ALTMAN ‘26

“Those with hearts brave and spirits untethered, listen; your path lies cloaked in the shadows of the Great Northern Fernweh. To the north, beyond the realms of known and into the embrace of the unknown, ye must venture. There lies your salvation from the impending doom, a sanctuary from the darkness that seeks to claim dominion.”

So wrote High Augur and former Student Council President Kevin Treehan of the solar eclipse that happened on April 8 in his apparent revelation of “The Prophecy of the Eighth.” As students at Exeter, it’s difficult to decide whether we should be proud of the fact that our own elected leader started a surprisingly successful cult, or if we should instead be ashamed of the fact that the proud Besselians tried to convince the administration to allow to them miss school with ploys like fear of the “Eight Year Blight.” 

Whatever it be, the tenacity of High Augur Treehan was formidable indeed. It says something of our school that when such shenanigans began, hundreds of Exonians followed after faithfully, and it worked. So, allow me to explain to the uninitiated (pun intended) this story, which shall not be soon forgotten. 

As it is recorded, on April 3, just after the sun had set, the High Augurs (an ambiguous group, only Treehan is known for sure) discovered their prophecy “wedged atop a set of books in the common room.” The prophecy spoke of many things, and I encourage the reader to read it for themselves, but most of all, the Besselian Prophecy spoke of the “Day of Obscuration,” to take place five days after April 3. 

The “Great Northern Fernweh” described the uncontrollable compulsion of all faithful Besselians to travel northwards. Those who follow it, so the prophecy said, may have to endure “The Unstoppable Dicking”—a high price, to be sure. As such, it was henceforth the duty of every Besselian to persuade The People of the Arches (Dean Weatherspoon and Dean Cahalane) to spare the Besselian pilgrims of the wrath of restrictions (not that such a fate could ever amount to that of the Eight Year Blight, of course). 

For the average Besselian, however, the battle with the administration was only ever a sacrifice to be made. You could not count one among their ranks who would not endure the Unstoppable Dicking to follow their augurs into rural New Hampshire, into totality, that they might sate their Fernweh. 

You see, their cause was larger than any single one of them. On the afternoon of April 3, Dean Weatherspoon reasoned that since the eclipse would still be 95 percent total in Exeter, the petitions to leave were being denied. In that first email, there was not even a hint of weakness or willingness to budge. But, after High Augur Treehan emailed all students at four in the morning, and (literally) hundreds of Exonians joined in the following days, it soon became a winning battle. 

Early in the morning of April 5, the High Augur updated his website, displaying an email he had sent to Principal Rawson that detailed how many hundreds of students and tens of parents were burning to travel north, and how even our bitter rival, Andover, had canceled classes (despite being much farther away and despite not having been granted the gift of the Besselian Prophecy). 

Not long after this the administration changed their mind. On that very evening, Dean Weatherspoon sent an email out, stating that they decided to accept some petitions after new information on how far in advance these trips had been planned came in. He went on to emphasize how hundreds of thousands of strangers would likely be surging up to the north with the same zeal of the average Besselian, and that the eclipse would indeed reach 95 percent totality here, and that they would provide eclipse glasses (of course, such facts could never sway a Besselian). 

Now, we could chalk up this change in events to legitimate reconsideration with the pressure from the student base, but I like to think that the High Augur may have caused some within the administration itself to have a change of heart toward the Besselian cause. 

In all seriousness, the underlying current of this movement, and what may have ultimately convinced the administration, is a concept of complete and utter “religious” (though it was claimed to be spiritual, and entirely secular) freedom. Whether he meant to or not, High Augur Treehan managed to manipulate the Academy’s multi-faith toleration and caused what might well be the largest sweeping conversion on a high school campus in a very long time. What conclusion you choose to draw from that, I suppose, should be left to the individual, but there is nevertheless something distinctly Exeter about not being able to walk down the paths without hearing “Hao Ni!” somewhere in the distance.