[Glorantha] Gods and Souls

[Simon Hibbs]

> Rob:
>   Greg has stated on the digest a few times lately that gods cannot change inside time.

But mortal comprehension of the gods and their nature can change.

Charles:

> I think that it is slightly more nuanced than this. Gods cannot change
> _themselves_ inside time. Mortals can make changes that affect gods.
>
> Examples include:
> - the Windstop, which "killed" Orlanth and Ernalda.

Good example, note that Orlanth's death was a local phenomenon.
Essentialy the connection between Orlanth and that area was severed.
Storm was still Storm, it's just that storms became impossible (dead)
in that area, for a while.

> - Hon-Eel won a HeroQuest Challenge against the Tarsh priestesses to
> integrate Lunar beliefs into the worship of Ernalda.
> - Jar-Eel killed the Pharaoh.
> - As the population of worshippers of a god grow, new powers may be
> added(and as the population shrinks, powers get lost).

That's true, but it's not because the gods changed, it's because
mortals discovered new, mythologicaly and magicaly valid ways to
interact with them. In the case of the Pharaoh the mortal part of him
was certainly directly affected (killed), but he's still out there
inhabiting some Lunar hell or other.


Julian Lord:

> The different forms of "soulstuff" can basically, from a generalist POV (ie
> a God Learner POV -- bearing in mind the pitfalls of that POV), be looked at
> as being different forms of "matter"/"stuff", and that is, I would say, how
> the formation of Glorantha and Gloranthans is (mostly) presented in
> HeroQuest. Which is the presentation of a GL POV, for the benefit and use of
> the readers and of actual GMs ...

To an extent, although all the Gloranthan magical systems accept that
each other exists - Lunar's accept that Malikioni Saints exist.
Malkioni accept that shamanic spirits exist, etc. Even Mystics accept
that all the others exist, they just say that existence itself is
illusory.

IMHO the true difference in them materialist viewpoint is that all of
material creation is susceptible to logical analysis, and obeys
logical laws. i.e. that the cosmos is at some level deterministic and
that spirits, gods, etc are composed of 'stuff' that is so
susceptible. Which may simply be to paraphrase what you say next -

> One mistake of the GLs though would IMO have been that they attempted to
> categorise these various different forms, as if they were merely different
> species of some kind of meta-matter, called God by the GLs ... but in fact,
> the various different sources and origins of Gloranthan reality are in very
> deep ways inherently incompatible with and unlike each other, the existence
> of Chaos being a prime example of this deep inter-incompatibility (all this
> from a deliberately materialistic POV BTW).

I don't agree on this point of incompatibility. I think they're much
more compatible than they sometimes appear to be. Humans from
different orrigins (Malkioni, Pamaltelans, etc) are all human. They
can interbreed, their children are (generaly) capable of adapting to a
different magical culture, such as the Pithdarans. They even overlap
considerably - to the extent that some spirits and gods, etc share a
common level of identity, such as Orlanth, Worlath and Little Brother.

Chaos is utterly unlike any of the others. I'm not quite sure what you
mean by this.


> Having said all that, the spiritual values that are vehicled by most
> Gloranthan religions would be just as entirely incompatible with the God
> Learnerish ideas presented above, and instead it could IMO be better to look
> at the "soul" as experienced and diversely named by the various cultures,
> races, and religions, as being first and foremost, a particular kind of
> personal infinity.

Yes, and interesting ay of putting it.

and in another post -

> Trouble is, transcendentalism can go in many different directions -- from
> one point of view, the Sky Gods could be said to have no connection to the
> Original, Ultimate Darkness, hence are cut off from the original Source of
> Life and Being in Glorantha (Subere and Beyond, to Ultimate Darkness) ...

But they aren't, even Yelm has his Shadow. Even darkness deities can
recognise 'friendship from afar' (IIRC). Interpret any of the mythical
worldvies in too extreme a way and you get badly bitten. All the
mythic cycles have a sting in their tail for those extremists who go
too far. I Fought, We Won and it's counetrparts around the world of
Glorantha established that there is a middle ground that all can
accept, and it's the world that Gloranthans live in.

> OTOH ALL beings have a direct link to the Ultimate Source, it's just that
> they have only a vague consciousness of that link in most cases, including
> many gods, essences, and spirits...

Yes, the way in which they experience that link is very different.
Living beings experience it as a font of creativity and potential. For
Illuminated beings (including gods) it's transcendence of individual
existance. For Chaos it's personal and cosmic annihiliation.


Simon Hibbs