From: Alex Ferguson (abf@cs.ucc.ie)
Date: Fri 05 Oct 2001 - 16:07:42 EEST
Jerome Blondel:
> I thought they were animists but Glorantha Intro says they offer
> sacrifices to idols, and idolatry doesn't seem to be extatic
> in nature. So that's an unusual theistic system, in which
> godlings/ daimones come to inhabit idols.
One can certainly worship idols in an ecstatic manner -- just add
sex, drugs, light blue touchpaper, and retire. Equally you can
equally sacrifice to idols, at least in the "material" sense. This
is where untold muddle between these supposedly crisply separated
systems comes into play... The core test though, if there is one,
is that theist practice has a moral element to it that's much stronger
than other systems, as expressed in the stock phrase "core sacrifice
is the self". This more or less means "I must do what Orlanth would
do in such a situation", or "We must all do as Yelm has commanded".
(I'm not saying other systems lack morals, but it's not as directly
bound up in the worship act itself.)
If I were to generalise, then, my guess would be that most (Orlanthi
most?) idol worship likely _was_ animist, in that one doesn't see
oneself as obeying moral strictures that come directly from the
idol. (But then again, maybe one does...)
> That's why i'd like to singularize her as much as possible.
> Her having a cult that gives no magic looks like a good way
> to do so. A very different cult from the Elamli norm is good
> too (maybe no idols for her devotees in that case).
Well, these days having a cult with no magic, or seriously rubbish
magic, will just raise suspicions that they're mystics... ;-)
Peter Metcalfe:
> The explicit distinction in the myth between gods and spirits is
> heavyhanded IMO [...]
I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks this; there's been something
of a proliferation of these lately, and they pretty much invariably
leave me cold (or at least cooler than I'd have been if the myth
had found sound subtler, more endogenous means of expressing this
truth).
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