[Glorantha] Mind, Soul, Spirit, Essence

[CJ]

Jane Williams wrote:
>>>... Simple analogy: "brain" = whole PC. "Soul" =
>>>important bit of software running on that PC. "Brain damage" = "my PC
>>>doesn't work". "Soul damage"  = "Microsoft Word has been corrupted".
> 

Interesting. That is epiphenomenalism - mind is an emergent property of 
brain.  In the real world I adhere to dualism, that is mind (meaning 
here conciousness, the seat of personal identity, usually equated with 
the 'soul') is not equl to brain, hence personal identity is capable of 
  post mortem survival.

I work in epistemological issues relating to the relationship between 
brain and mind quite a bit, and I still find this discussion hard going, 
hence not much comment so far.

 From the viewpoint of a modern parapsychologist with an interest in 
philosophy of religion, using only the source material I have to hand, 
we might surmise...

i) immortality is conditional.  The Atheist No-God folk do not have it.

ii) conciousness appears to be a tripartite structure, where brain 
activity in most Gloranthans is currently a mix of Spirit, Soul and 
ssence working within a body.  Think of the brain as a reciever tuned to 
this signal - the self is always elsewhere, so when one enters teh God 
Time, or other ritual state, one is actually shifting towards th 
eauthentic seat of conciousness, of the real self.  The body and brain 
are just useful transmitter/recievers which happen to normally channel 
most of the Self through them.

iii) the undifferentiated self on death persists, but the nature of that 
persistance depends on various factors. It may later be reborn, in 
another body, or it may remain outside of Time in Magical Worlds.  It 
may to some extent be eternal, uncreated, or a fragment of a pre-Time 
conciousness which has splintered, or been distributed over arachne 
solara's  web, as a "distributed network". Are all humans actually 
fractured parts of Grandfather mortalin some sense?

iv)  it is possible through mental effort to tune out two of the 
frequencies, and tune in to one, making the self concentrated, and 
becoming pure soul, spirit or essence.  This does not result in a 
reduction of selfhood, but rather a more focussed self, directly attuned 
to one realm.  It is also possible to reject all three, and focus one 
energies entirely on the body, becoming a No-God  Atheist type.  This 
may well be seen as a desirable outcome - see Buddhism for examples.
I do wonder if the spirit element and soul element for example of a 
Sorcerer might become weak ghosts, or dreams, after concentration.  They 
are clearly submerged somehow.

v) Post mortem existence loses individual personality and self identity, 
and instead enters the person back in to the collective.  Hence one 
assumes that those transmigrate/reincarnate very rarely have memories of 
their time on Glorantha before. Ghosts and other spirits still on 
Glorantha specifically do maintain personal identity and issues, becaus 
in death they have not been severed from time/space by Humakts Sword, an 
have not passed on - this is probably why they are so malign in many cases.

vi) In Animist traditions thsoe who concentrated on Spirit may become 
Ancestral Spirits are still to some extent individuals, but that 
individuality may be a function of the living worshippers mind, derived 
from the practitioners who invoke them.  A forgotten ancestor would I 
suspect eventually dissolve back in to the collective of spirits, and 
lose individuality.  Ancestor worship allows continued persistence of 
personal identity beyond the grave?

vii) Essences may be able to create a place outside Time where by 
focussed meditation their conciousness persists after death as 
individuals - that is a Node.  This is uncommon, and most enter the 
great monistic cionsciousness collective of Solace, or are despatched to 
a less desirable fate, still not really made clear.  I suspect sinners 
become spirits, souls or just disintegrate on death, rather than 
embracing the sublime oceanic conciousness of Solace? Or are they simply 
cut off from the Great Mind of Solace and the universal collective, and 
hence perish alone, slowly disintegrating as their bodies rot, painfully 
awar eof but unable to achieve that great oceanic feeling and peaceful 
oneness of existence as a citizen in Solace?

viii) the nature of most magic seems to me to be the writing of the 
individual outside Time, the heros jouney to make themselves immortal 
and change the universe by stepping outside, then returning. Heros are 
those who do not fall in to the cycles of the collective, but somehow 
make themselves immortal, and individual, by their actions which persist 
forever.

All very wild and wooly speculation, and as I can't follow some of the 
argument sbefore, possbly already contradcited. I have not tried to 
consider the issue of how conciousness changes thriough the ages, 
through the races, or the Id/Egoo/Superego apects, to use the Freudian 
terms, athey are way outside my area of thought.  I'd be amused to see 
how far my quick thinking on the subject reflects gloranthan reality.

I did briefly wonder if Spirit was linked with Id,and the unconscious, 
Ego with Soul and Superego with Essence, but I amy be taking the idea 
too far there.  Trolls  are Theistic, and Aldryami too, so I guess I am 
wrong. :)

cj x