From: Jonas Schiott (jonas.schiott@vinga.hum.gu.se)
Date: Mon 27 Jun 1994 - 19:40:11 EEST
Catching up on a few days' worth of dailies - I think I'll just comment on
things in the order I find them...
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Colin in X-RQ-ID: 4775
>Orlanth reacts to rituals reflexively. Those who realise this and act
>accordingly are, de facto, Illuminated.
>The only reason non-illuminates can't do what illuminates do is because they
>don't think it will work.
I'm with you so far, with the proviso that "thinking it will work" is state of mind that's pretty hard to achieve.
>I'm sure Priests use Illumination as an excuse to explain lapses in the
>functionality of their deity, all the time. And their flock believes it too.
I'm not so sure about this. How common _is_ knowledge about Nysalor and Riddlers? I can see a case for the priesthood wanting to cover it up. We usually play that ordinary people (including beginning adventurers) are unaware of the finer distinctions between various enemy/foreign cults; they couldn't tell Thanatar from Krarsht in a line-up, it's all just Chaos.
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Alex in X-RQ-ID: 4778
>Safelstran isn't a Theyalan language? I dunno for sure, but I supposed
>that it was, since the sub-dialects of Ralian Theyalan aren't listed, while
>the Western languages are, and Safelstran doesn't figure.
The Glorantha Book implies that people in Safelster speak Ralian, a Western tongue (if they didn't, who in Ralios would?), while according to the Genertela Book they speak Safelstran. I've discussed this with David, and we've agreed that Safelstran must be correct, and it's probably Western. Why not Ralian? As far as I know, no other language is named after a larger geographical region than the one where it's actually spoken.
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Nick in X-RQ-ID: 4785, quoting a book
>: People contemplated this and felt something more serious than a mild
>: case of culture shock. Those who really took it in, in all its awesome
>: variety, experienced a deep psychological disturbance that has sometimes
>: been described as the "vertigo of relativity."
Yeah, but this is a description of the situation in the mid-20th century, isn't it? Academics today are much more jaded about relativism.
Nick himself says
>Please look at this world, before telling me everyone in it is reasonable.
Well, I'm certainly no friend of "radical interpretation" or whatever that old phrase was, but I think Devin's point was that no matter how much you ascribe different beliefs to other cultures, you are still assuming that you know what it means to _hold_a_belief_, and that this psychological mechanism remains the same throughout the ages. Which may very well be true, who knows? It's at any rate not _a_priori_ ridiculous as a methodological assumption.
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"ANDOVER@delphi.com" in X-RQ-ID: 4792
>I AM a scholar but have largely kept my mouth shut on all the scholarly
>debates about history (yes I am an historian).
Kinda like me, except I'm a lot worse at keeping my huge mouth shut.:-)
>an article by Richard Kieckhefer titled "The Specific Rationality of
>Modern Magic."
Seems like it's about "natural magick" and the "Hermetic tradition"? If so, one could argue that Glorantha is much more about _ancient_ magic than medieval, especially if one takes Greg's mysticistic gobbledigook seriously :-).
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Barron in X-RQ-ID: 4796
>I'm more than willing to accept the term "Runequest"
>for the "everyday" HQing I am talking about.
Very gratifying.:-) I think the reason a lot of people prefer to talk about _hero_questing is the 'paradigmatic shift' away from Runes. My thoughts on this are still a bit unclear, but if we accept this gregging "runequesting" can't be a general Gloranthan term, it would be confined to those areas where rune cults are worshipped. But on the other hand, do all Gloranthan cultures speak of "heroquesting"?
>Funny, when I first read the idea of guilt inspired SoRs I didn't like it
>much (didn't fit my RQ2 ideals, I guess). But when I started thinking
>about the RuneQuest idea (as it is now known) it fit beautifully. So,
>thanks for bringing it up/creating it.
Credit where credit is due: it was first suggested by Dag Olausson, to Sten Ahrman and myself. It struck us with the immediate clarity of obvious truth...
>Can belief create reality in Glorantha?
Yes: Illusion.
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>Curiously, this approach reminds me of the RQII schema where people set
Harald in X-RQ-ID: 4812, on Barron's stuff
>out to walk in the path of the gods to achieve runes. When you had
>achieved them you were like your god.
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Nuff said.
( Jonas Schiott ) ( Institutionen for Ide- och lardomshistoria ) ( Goteborgs Universitet ) ---------------------
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