What Gods are Made of

From: Erik Hamilton <ham_at_queeg.com>
Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 13:38:19 -0800 (PST)

It's time to opine:
Unless we're consigning Joseph Campbell to a death below the waves of the Homeward Ocean, I feel that we can never wholly discount the monomyth. Just because the Jrusteli constructed monomyth does not hold does not mean that the idea is flawed per se. The Jrusteli were guilty of supreme hubris, and their vision therefore was muddied with their own preconceptions. Personally I feel that the Red Goddess has her head up her hinder, but that does not mean I believe her ideas are intrinsically flawed, only their application. Same with the God Learners and their quest for the monomyth.

I envision the Gods as being like huge ethereal diamonds. They are beautiful, and they have seemingly limitless facets. Every face, when peered into, reveals different tricks of the light, a different name, a different history, different spells and heirarchies. Each facet reveals different relationships with every other diamond. Yelmalio and Elmal can very easily be the very same diamond, with their followers each gazing into the crystal from opposite sides. Only he knows what his real name is, and he's not telling anyone. Each subjective perspective reveals something different about the objective reality of the God. Every Trickster shrine teaches a different spell because every one reveres some slightly different aspect of the God's totality. It is conceivable that there is only one Trickster, and the myriad names and personalities the Trickster takes to himself, be he Bolongo, Eurmal, or Don Quixote are all different sides to the same God. While Trickster priests understand this, Sun Domers do not, and so my nice happy Eurmali can find a shrine to his God across the whole world, while the unyielding Yelmalions see only the one facet, and cannot reap the benefits of the others.

It's akin to the old parable of the five blind men and the elephant, where one feels the trunk and declares the elephant to be like unto a vine, while another feels the elephant's side and says it is very like a wall, and another, holding the ear, protests the elephant is much akin to a sail. Well Orlanth Rex is the trunk, Orlanth Adventurous is the ear, Orlanth Thunderous is the tusk, Worlath is the tuft at the end of the tail, Orland is the eyelid, Invisible Orlanth is the skin behind the left front knee, etc. Furthermore, we're all very blind.

In the end what we believe is moot. It doesn't matter what we know to be true. If Yu-Kargzant is only the Sun's Servant to the Dara Happoi does not prevent a Pentan Kahn from receiving His blessings. And if it works for him, then it's real, and there is nothing subjective about that.

Okay, I'm done.

Erik Hamilton

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