Alex:
>
> That strikes me as being couched in terms so 4Wish as to be painful,
> though I don't disagree in substance. But what precisely do we mean
> by "otherworld"? Or come to that, "mystic"?
David C:
>
> Anyway, even if the otherworld is kind of theist - I guess my
>proposition could be restated, in a manner that is a little less
>Four-Worldish to satisfy Alex, that the mystic dominated cultures
>(such as Vithela and Kralorela) still acknowledge an otherworld.
> While it might satisfy the rigid Four-World proponents to
>disclaim that such otherworlds are not essentially mystic, I don't
>really see the distinction myself.
Let's look at the Vithelan Otherworld then (as I know more about that than about the Kralorelan one). IMO it is the Otherworld of the Vithelan theists, which are the vast majority. The mystics say that the mundane world and the Otherworld differ not in kind but in degree, and this whole spectrum is an illusion.
To the Vithelan theists the Vithelan Otherworld is natural and familiar, to the Vithelan mystic it is another part of the illusion to refute and a tempting one which makes it the more dangerous.
That's what I mean when I say it is more theist than mystic. To get hideously rulesy, reasoning from the four world setup presented in HW, saying that the Vithelan Otherworld is mystic would imply that the Vithelan theists would have a foreign world penalty. I don't think they do. But if I interpret your description correctly David, you think that neither do the mystics?
David:
>
>Suffice to say I can't think of a
>culture that doesn't acknowledge an otherworld, and in such cases the
>mystics will have an influence on it.
In the same manner that mystics influence the mundane world, absolutely.
Alex again:
>
> > > The worst Lunar Hell of all, the one where the very air is
> > > pain, the one where they stuck Sheng, is where Gerra's (and thus
> > > Sedenya's) Illumination took place.
> >
> > Which means you can achieve mystic liberation there. That
> > does not necessarily make it a mystic otherworld, but there
> > is no reason to rule out the possibility entirely I guess.
>
> I'm not entirely sure what the distinction would mean here, indeed.
You can achieve mystic liberation by a number of means, in a number of places. These means and places need not necessarily be mystical in nature.
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