From: Alex Ferguson (alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk)
Date: Mon 23 May 1994 - 00:55:14 EEST
Joerg:
> I "_need_" the following partly, not totally independent mechanisms about
> initiation:
> - pantheon initiation
> - religious initiation accompanying adulthood initiation
> - childhood pre-initiation
I know you've proposed them, I'm trying to see why, more specifically. I don't really see why you can't achieve the (printable) desired effects of pantheon initiation by tweaking associate worship a bit, and the like. On adulthood initiation, you seem fairly vague and noncommital: almost as vague and noncommital as me, in fact. The last I'm even more (most?) mystified by.
> > They might be important in some notional sense, but I don't see that
> > they'd be required to actually _do_ anything. As "non-initiates" they
> > don't have the knowledge, or the necessary magical viewpoint.
> You don't need any magic knowledge to be involved in a heroquest.
I think you do, if you have any sense at all. We're talking of souls at stake, here. This isn't to say they're not physically present at some ceremonies, though.
> > But fertility rituals (your argument as to why it's a Good Thing for boys
> > to worship Voriof) are of less importance in towns,
> Wrong. A town depends solely on the fertility of the surrounding rural
> commodities for survival.
> You won't find a city inhabited by Orlanthi which imports basic foodstuff.
Apart from all the ones importing them from said surrounding rural commodities. Can we agree who, exactly, we're talking about for 10min? The above seemingly contradicts your own argument about how Voriof isn't too important as a sheep god in towns. It bothers me that Voriof seems to me to be first a foremost a god of sheep, and only secondly and _by_ _association_ of boys, that you seem keen to throw out the first in favour of a version of the second run riot.
> Most boys aren't apprenticed yet. (Not at all, according to RQ3 character
> generation rules, although this takes rules interpretation too far). They
> have received basic social training, common knowledge, maybe a bit
> specialisation from their parents' trades. All of them want to become
> chieftain or something like that at the time of their "Voriof-introduction",
> sometime around their 6th, 9th or 12th summer.
That's being very vague. I agree that if Voriof were an exact Voria analogue, the membership would certainly be younger than the typical apprentice. Too young to cart into a heroquest, certainly. But I don't think Voriof is such an exact analogue. After all, Voria is specifically the Goddess of innocence and new beginnings, and hence, of very young children. I think initiation into her cult is more of a de facto existentialist state, than anything remotely like Yelm the Youth.
Voriof, I think, is somewhat more like a "proper" cult, with a "real" initiate status, which not all boys would necessarily join. However, given his secondary association, there may exist a pre-initiatory status to which all or most boys belong, until they are perhaps 12, but which is of no vast magical importance. At roughly that point, they'd get apprenticed, begin training as warrior, become a "proper" Voriof initiate, or something of that sort.
> J> For Orlanthi:
> J> Youth associates
> > I think this is a confusing concept. Voria "initiates" don't get
> > _any_ magical benefits from their "associates" [...]
> Again and again: Magical benefits needn't be "do it yourself" magic.
And who on earth ever said so? That you seem to be making this argument "again and again" in the context of _initiation_ (in a more general sense) makes me wonder what the whole _point_ of these manifold extra benefits of pantheon initiation is. Why is it so Vitally Important to be _initiated_, in whatever sense, to get these indirect magical benefits, if direct ones aren't necessary?
However, here I was talking about "do it yourself" magical benefits, which is what you _generally_ get via associate worship, wherein Voria is one of the obvious exceptions.
I can see your reasons for using existing terminology such as "associate" and "initiate", by analogies of varying strength, but moved from the existing context (principally that of individual cults), I think it starts to become somewhat vague and confusing.
> > I also think that to say "Storm Bull (not Urox)" is to conflate the
> > notions of different _cults_ with that of different gods.
> Different myths, not cults. In Orlanth's myths, Urox hardly would figure
> as husband of Ernalda
Or in the Praxians. That'd be Eiritha.
> he's just beastly big brother, bashing headlong into
> the fray. In Praxian myth, the Bull had married the Earth. Whether these
> different myths make them different deities I leave up to Campbells
> apostles. It makes them different aspects, to say the least.
Since we don't know a lot of Orlanthi-specific myths about Urox, this is exceedingly speculative. For the moment I'm inclined to believe they are the same thing. It's not clear what you mean by "aspect" here, as they play very similar roles in the two cultures. I'm sure the Praxians and Sartarites have long since decided of each other: "They have a funny name for our god. Funny title for head people in the cult, too."
> > I must say that your use of the term "Initiation" is sorta confusing in
> > general.
> I use it according to Webster's Dictionary of the English Language.
I didn't say it was _wrong_. It's still confusing. I don't think the cultists would use it in so many different senses, and neither would an orderly-minded God Learner.
> > Put your God Learner hat on for a moment (I'm sure it's handy
> > <g>): there is clearly a very particular "normal" structure to the
> > Initiate status, the details of which I needn't belabour. The Seven
> > Mothers cult bends them, Voria and the Red Goddess break them (though
> > use of the term in these cases does make a sort of stream of consciousness
> > sense).
> I don't see how the Red Goddess breaks it any more than say Yelm or Orlanth
> do, with my hat on.
Red Goddess Initiates are rather more like priests, if anything. It's hard to see much resemblance between them and "ordinary" initiates.
> Nor do I see the telling difference between one god per
> cult (say like Lodril or Etyries), two gods (Caladra and Aurelion) or seven
> (The Seven Mothers, The Lightbringers' Ring).
Well, six each, actually, for the purposes of active worship. I recall us agreeing that the 7M cult "bent" the usual pattern of worship, I fail to see the controversy of me using the description in a weaker sense. C&A is, after all, a God Learner construct, so isn't a great example of theistic orthodoxy. For the record, I don't believe the Lightbringers are at all commonly worshipped in a single cult, though that they could be doesn't seem inherently implausible. That's still a big step to the Orlanth Pantheon Cult, though.
> If Voria breaks the rules, so
> does Aldrya, and Mostal does, the Invisible God does, the Red Emperor does,
> the Pharaoh does, Godunya does, in that all of these have sub-rune rank
> members above lay member (no secrets, no active worship) status.
Voria breaks the rules because _all_ her initiates are "lay members". Your other examples merely have an "extra" initiate (lay member, whatever) stage tacked on.
> You mean the bland initiate definition from the Universal Cult Format,
> right? I am in fact astonished that something so _generic_ is defended as
> being Gloranthan fact, not to be touched except for a few cases.
I'm suggesting it not be abused as a rules concept, not that it be defended as Gloranthan fact. Currently, you are using the term, in both abstract and specific case discussion, in about three distinct senses. (I may be biased, since I also happen to not want/need two of them.)
If you think this is being excessively picky, consider all the hassle about the semantics of KoS's unqualified use of the term.
I get very confused when you argue based on GoG cults, Joerg, since the entire thrust of your pantheon initiation ideas seems to be to ditch them. Or is it an exercise in reductio ad absurdum?
> > It doesn't unduly bother me that some cults work this way; it's at least
> > clear what god/cult is being worshipped.
> The cult of Orlanth's Stead? <ducking>
Fails on about three counts.
> > (Not so very
> > coincidentally, they are also cults which the eligible candidate "must"
> > be (fully, as it were) initiated into, for social reasons.)
> Just like in good old Sartar, right?
Just like some portion of Sartar to be determined at a later date.
> J> Adulthood initiation wouldn't, the basic religious initiation would
> J> involve POW sacrifice (once).
> > But isn't the whole point of your argument that they're the same thing?
> I said they come simultaneously for "all" Orlanthi.
Then you said they might not. Are they merely coincidentally simultaneous, "all" of the time, or are they absolutely-the-same-thing-honest?
Alex.
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