[Glorantha] Soul and spirit

[Jeff Richard]

>So does it give us a nice neat term for "soul, spirit,
>essence, or whatever your chosen Otherworld calls it"?
>Never mind the mysticism and fancy Lunar stuff, do we
>have a generic phrase for use in everyday life, now
>that "soul" and "spirit" are no longer synonyms?

"Soul" and "spirit" are related words but are not synonyms in English.
 In Neoplatonism, and according to many Christian, Jewish and Islamic
theologians, the "soul" is immortal and preexists the body.  The
"spirit" is may or may not be eternal, and is sometimes considered
part of the "soul".

These sorts of metaphysical concepts do not have "nice neat terms" in
English - the widespread belief that they do by many people on this
digest is mainly a result of sloppy and imprecise word use - so why
should Glorantha be any different?  The fact is that very very very
few Gloranthans would have this sort of abstract and mechanistic
metaphysical discussion (maybe there was a God Learner
Reconstructionalist or Emanationalist school somewhere that muttered
this sort of nonsense, but I kind of doubt it).

Jeff