[Glorantha] Souls, Great Selves

[Peter Metcalfe]

Simon Hibbs:

>Me>     ...Some
> >chaotics have lost their Great Self but the status of being chaotic is
> >a passionate rejection of the moral nature of the Cosmos, not the
> >destruction of the Great Self.

>Perhaps someone could reject the moral nature of the cosmos (which is
>transitory and material anyway, for a mystic) and still transcend it,
>yet we are told that chaotics cannot transcend. This is why chaotic
>gods are excluded from the godworld, and offer no afterlife or
>possibility of reincarnation, on which mroe later.

I'm not sure where it is said that chaotics cannot transcend.  Chaotic
deities (Thed, Bagog and the like) are not part of the Transcendent
Realm but the same is true of most gods in glorantha.

> >The Crimson Bat is chaotic yet has a Great Self according to the
> >Glorantha: Intro p123.  Sheng Seleris is not chaotic yet he has
> >no Great Self.

>The case of the Bat is something I've been wondering about, I'll have
>to look that up.

         In her quest for her Self Sedenya found the Bat and taught it
         its Self.  The bat grew extra eyes to see its new found
         knowledge and became the steed of the Goddess.

         Glorantha: Intro p123.

>As for Sheng, perhaps he gave up his Great Self,

         After a few years as a humble slave, Sheng Seleris joined
         the Saka Morn sect so that he might learn from his error
         and become liberated.  [...]  After a hundred years of
         meditation Sheng Seleris was offered the final temptation:
         the bliss of eternal Liberation or the horrible burden of the
         World.  To the surprise of everyone, he chose the World.

         Glorantha: Intro p196.

>I don't know enough about him, but do we know for sure that he isn't
>chaotic?

There's no evidence whatsoever that he was chaotic.

>He's certainly a strong candidate for having a 'passionate
>rejection of the moral nature of the Cosmos', after all why else give
>up transcendence?

Well that's something only Sheng would know.  The Kralori who
had a hand in his making ascribe the worst motivations to him
(namely that he was really seeking power).  However when the
Red Moon first rose, he swore an oath to walk upon it.  When
he was offered the Final Temptation, the oath was unfulfilled.
Perhaps the Tempter managed to persuade him that he could
not become liberated if he had an unfulfilled oath?

> >Sedenya is manifestly present within Rufelza.

>According to Gods of Glorantha (perhaps out of date), I got the
>impression that Sedenya isn't manifest in that way and can only be
>communed with at all by the most enlightened Lunar mystics.

Just because the RQ3 cult of the Red Goddess could only be
joined by Illuminates does not mean that Sendya is not manifest
within the body of the Red Moon.  Insofar as her worshippers
love to point out how so and so was a mask of the Goddess,
it would be quite unusual for them to say that the Red Moon is
not a Mask of the Goddess.

>As
>for Rufelza, has she realy passionately rejected the moral nature of
>the cosmos?

She rejects the position that the Other (the bad things of this
world) must be shunned.

> >I fail to see what the problem is.  Most gloranthans do not know their
> >Great Self.  A small minority have realized it while a few others have
> >destroyed it.

>But destroying the Great Self shouldn't be possible.

Sez who?  If you destroy your link to or divorce yourself from the
Transcendent realm, then there is no longer any evidence of a
Great Self.  It simply becomes a pointless concept like the sound
made by a tree falling in the forest when nobody is around.

>Digression: All of which still leaves the question of the Underworld,
>which doesn't have a connection to Transcendence yet obviously isn't
>all chaotic.

Most deities do not have a connection to the Transcendent Realm
(only Great Gods and the like do) yet they are not chaotic.
Most darkness deities get their connection to the Transcendent Realm
through dreaded Subere, whose method of doing so is a Big Secret.

Jane Williams:

>Well in that case what's the non-dodgy Simon Hibbsian
>term meaning "soul, spirit, essence, or whatever your
>otherworld calls the thing"? We still need one, and it
>looks like "Great Self" just got hijacked by the
>Mystics (or was it the Lunars?)

Soul works just as fine and any gloranthan who insisted
otherwise would have been beaten up by their elders and
betters for pointless pedanty.  If you really want to be
technical then immortal self or magical self would be
acceptable terms.

--Peter Metcalfe