From: Erik Sieurin (BV9521@utb.hb.se)
Date: Wed 17 Jan 1996 - 20:00:31 EET
Sandy on Sorcery:
> You cannot violate a physical law. You can merely
> circumvent it. A bird is not violating the law of Attraction in its
> flight (by which all things are attracted to the materials of which
> they are constructed) -- the bird is attracted to the Earth as are
> all things born upon it, but it is also attracted to the Sky whence
> its spirit originated, so it is able to float between the two
> worlds. Upon death, its spirit fragments and returns to the sky
> matrix, while the corpse falls to the ground.
Puts on Glasses of Zzabur:
Ah, but do not forget that the Idea of Bird is associated with the
Sky, which enables Birds to fly, while other beings, despite the fact
that their spirits originate from Above, lacks this ability.
> A sorcerer who evokes a bolt of fire is not violating
> physical law, he is merely spending his own energy to tap into the
> source of Fire and letting it through to the world.
Don't forget the all-important source of the human mind: there are
emotions that are Fiery as well as there are physical energy which is
Fiery. Thus you can use your Sky-aligned emotions and transform them
into material Fire, as well as calling upon the celestial
constellations or the subcthonic powers for creating the needed
flames.
The "spirit" which the barbarians espouse as the soul is nothing more than the
spiritual side of their material bodies, made up of the five
elements. Of course these spirits will be attracted to the energy
fields of the most similar elemental energy after death, just as the
physical breath leaves the body to join the winds and the fire (heat)
of the corpse escape up in the sky. This strengthens these energy
fields, and as the learned mr Petersen pointed out, makes them take
on anthropoid characteristics, achieveing a Will separate from that
of the Creator because of the True Souls that are trapped within
them, and thus a pseudo-soul. However, since the True Soul can be nothing
but One, as it is a reflection of the perfect Creator, these
ant-hill-like mass-souls cannot reach Solace, and they deterioate
slowly, releasing the souls to be reborn.
This anthropomorphization process is quiet different depending on
whether the elemental energies and doomed souls comes from A, impious
Malkioni or atheists, B, fairly civilized pagans or C, savages.
In the first case, the attraction will only be due to the
uncontrolled emotions and lack of devotion, and the energy fields of
the elements will have Will, but no true personality. Thus it will be
wild and uncontrolled, and such countries will be plagued by all
sorts of calamities, until they dissolve or are destroyed - many
examples of this can be found both in modern and ancient times.
In the second case, the attraction will be due to the pacts made by
various warlocks and magicians who have sold their and their lackeys
souls to the energy fields. This practice originated in the fact that
in ancient days some corrupt wizards, when death was immanent,
willingly bound themselves to these energy fields, and controlled the
therein bound souls by virtue of their superior training - witness the examples of
Worlath, Ehilm and Humct. They cowed primitive and ignorant people to
give them their souls in exchange for protection. Other primitives,
seing this, began to invent superstitious rituals (the theories of
which were built upon shreds of wisdom gained from true Malkioni) to
appease the energy fields in a similar way, not realizing that these
lacked personalities; by virtue of this process they gained one.
In the third case, the only contact made by the animalistic savages
will be with various lesser spirits. They will thus gain many of the
souls of the pagans, growing somewhat stronger and attaining some
human characteristics, but in no way like the Pagan Gods.
However, a pious man (or, in extraordinary cases, woman) has
strengthened his Soul so much by Righteous Living, that it will be
unhesitatingly attracted to its source, the Creator, and then the
pious will live forever, close to the Invisible God, in everlasting
bliss and glory. This ascension to a higher state of being results in
the scattering of the spiritual elemental energies of the unclean
spirit, since they obviously cannot follow whence the Soul which
keeps them together goes. Thus, the pagan warlocks and witches who
can "see" spirits think that the souls of pious Malkioni are
dissolved after death, shredded.
Because of this, in a pious kingdom, the possibility of righteous
wizardry will be mightily enhanced because A, the corrupt
energy-fields of the pagan god-constructs have less Will there, since
none is gained by the death of pagans or unpious Malkioni and B, the
death of many pious Malkioni will release the spiritual elemental
energies without any Will binding it, making it more easy for
wizards to do so.
In an impious kingdom as described above, any wizardry will be hard
to work, since the Willful energy fields may not respond as expected,
and most of the spiritual elemental energies are bound with Will
other than that of the Creator, thus unknown to the pious. What is
more, the powers will be unruly, lacking any true personality, being
more monstrous beasts than thinking beings, and even harder to
decipher. However, since they are bestial, they will seldom willingly
harm a wizard, simply because they cannot fathom his existence. The
worst problem is, that in such areas there will be many dark
sorcerers, who will have turned themselves into demons to avoid
entrapment at death, since they know they can never reach Solace.
In a pagan area of the more civilized kind, a wizard will also have a
hard time for similar reasons as described above. However, here the
fields of elemental energy have taken on various human-like
personalities, like unto those of the heathens who worship them.
Since it is fully possible for a pious man to understand in part the
mins of a heathen, the clever wizard may work around the foolish
demons - though he must be on his guard, lest he is caught in actual
idol-worship like the pagans. On the other hand, these demons are
human-like enough to be truly vengeful, and will thus more often
punish the wizard, turning mere failures into magical calamities.
The savage land will also be like unto the first described. However,
it will lack the demonic wraiths of impious sorcerers, and in its
place have many minor natural demons. These can actually be
controlled and used by a wizard, though this entails high risk.
Otherwise wizardry in these areas will be similar to that of the
first kind of impious land.
One should of course remember, that the borders of the living fields
Erik Sieurin, who wonders if he really believes there is someone in
of elemental energy flux and interact. Thus this can only be a very
rough guide to what a wizard can expect from new surroundings.
Glorantha which believes any of this mess?
------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Fri 13 Jun 2003 - 16:28:57 EEST