[Glorantha] Soul and spirit

>So does it give us a nice neat term for "soul, spirit,
>essence, or whatever your chosen Otherworld calls it"?
>Never mind the mysticism and fancy Lunar stuff, do we
>have a generic phrase for use in everyday life, now
>that "soul" and "spirit" are no longer synonyms?

"Soul" and "spirit" are related words but are not synonyms in English.  In Neoplatonism, and according to many Christian, Jewish and Islamic theologians, the "soul" is immortal and preexists the body. The "spirit" is may or may not be eternal, and is sometimes considered part of the "soul".

These sorts of metaphysical concepts do not have "nice neat terms" in English - the widespread belief that they do by many people on this digest is mainly a result of sloppy and imprecise word use - so why should Glorantha be any different? The fact is that very very very few Gloranthans would have this sort of abstract and mechanistic metaphysical discussion (maybe there was a God Learner Reconstructionalist or Emanationalist school somewhere that muttered this sort of nonsense, but I kind of doubt it).

Jeff Received on Fri 12 May 2006 - 16:07:56 EEST