Secret Treaties

So much more info could go here it's not even funny.

Throughout and before recorded human history, various local agreements have been made, in many different forms, to regulate contact between intelligent spectral entities and the humans whom they often invisibly live alongside. Unchecked, the everyday activities of each party can deeply negatively affect the other. For instance, large concentrations of cold iron or silver in the human spectrum can act like plutonium dumps in the spirit world, and many varieties of decaying spirit-material induce delerium or similar effects in humans. Some are entirely oral, or encoded in ritual dances, poems, paintings or songs. The original agreements were usually draughted by shaman, and so they are almost totally inconsistent with each other and entirely situational, depending on a deep knowledge of contexts unique to a specific environment and epoch, rich in poetic obscure metaphor and dealing in great, pedantic detail with specific instances while leaving vast and frustrating loopholes. Any amount of time perusing documentations of Secret Treaties will leave a researcher annoyed, confused and utterly exasperated.

Learning about the rules set down in Secret Treaties is a large part of the Spirit Lore and Customs class taught in Secret Academies, and many spirit researchers spend their entire careers recording and translating them. Ghost consulates are widely versed in Secret Treaties. Even if they're not the ones to decode and research them, they study the meanings behind them in order to better conduct their jobs.