Intercision

Intercision is a type of fictional operation in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy that separates an invididual from their dæmon. Every character in Lyra Belacqua's world has a dæmon, which is an animal that is a physical manifestation of the person's soul. During childhood, the dæmon continually changes to reflect the child's changing emotions. For example, if the child is scared, it may become a mouse. If angry, it may change to a tiger. However, when the child reaches puberty the dæmon stops changing and settles on one single form, and reflects the person's general personality. For example, if the character is a servant, the dæmon usually settles as a dog. However, the oppressive Church (which is the dark heart of Pullman's trilogy) has linked the settling of dæmons with the introduction of sinful thoughts in a person, and sets about conducting experiments which aim to physically remove the dæmon before the child reaches puberty, and before the dæmon settles. The Church believes that this would stamp out any "sinful" thoughts such as sex, homosexuality, etc. before they are even a faint glimmer of an idea in the child's mind.

A method is developed by Marisa Coulter and the Oblation Board to remove the dæmon, and this method is known as Intercision. The novel reveals two different methods of achieving this. The first method is known as the Maystadt process. The details of the method are not revealed but it is indicated that the separation could not be done with the patient in a conscious state and that it involved tearing a person and his or her dæmon apart, likely by physical distance. The second method developed to allow separation with the patient in a conscious state involves placing child and dæmon in separate cages on a kind of operating table. In between these two cages, there is a gap for a "special type of guillotine" to fall into, which severs the invisible link between child and dæmon. The results, as seen on Tony Makarios, are devastating as the child becomes a zombie-like figure who loses the will to live. Although Tony is found and saved by Lyra Belacqua and the armored bear Iorek Byrnison, skulking around some outhouses in the icy wastes of Bolvangar, he dies soon after they get him back to their camp.

However, both the Church and Lord Asriel discover that Intercision has some side effects that could be used to their advantage. Whenever the link between a child and dæmon is severed a huge burst of energy is released. Lord Asriel is the first to realise that this energy can be used to open up the invisible doorways between the different universes, and the Church uses this burst of energy to power a bomb used against Lyra.