>I can't stop thinking that if some group started giving the wrong sort of
>worship to an Otherwordly Being, wouldn't they start having different myths
>about It, and thereby change how the Being actually was, at least in their
>eyes.
>I haven't really followed the Gloranthan discussion for a couple of years,
>but
>I thought that the myth was about as close to the Truth you'd ever get.
Gack. I guess I was hoping if we didn't mention this idea, it would go
away...
I mean, only readers of the glorantha digest and various fan publications
know about it, so why can't we just bury it quietly before the newbies
become tainted with all this god learner propaganda?
That said, even if we have to accept mythological revisionism as real, it's a process that takes a whole lot of time. You don't really need rules for it. ;-)
Anyway, let me just try one more time to explain what it is about misapplied worship that rubs me the wrong way.
It's _not_ the fact that it happens at all. I'm fine with that. In fact it makes perfect sense: gloranthans are set in one of the possible magical worldviews (probably one of the four major paradigms in the rules) and filter everything they encounter through that mindset. So a theist who wants to get something out of an otherworld entity (like magic) will offer it sacrificial worship, because that's all he knows about. Even if he knows of other ways, he'll probably consider them evil and wrong. And _even_ if he's exceptionally open-minded, he just can't relearn the habits of a lifetime and start using those other ways at will.
But animists, or at least shamans, apparently have the unique ability to break out of their own mindset whenever they like and offer an alien form of worship to beings that they would be better off integrating into their normal practices. I have yet to see an explanation for this phenomenon. I'm not saying there is no possibility of an explanation. One poster mentioned RW cases of mixed-mode worship, which implies that this could be 'a cultural thing'. Fine, but then I would like to see it grounded in specific cultures. If Spirit Cults occur in all or most animistic cultures, the definition of "animism" needs overhaul. :-)
To bring a specific culture into the discussion: if a Praxian shaman sacrifices to Thunder Bird, why doesn't he sacrifice to Waha? Or does he? Assuming there is a difference in worship, how does he justify it? What, in the shaman's mind, is the difference between the two spirits (apart from their relative power)? Doesn't he notice that one way of worship is much harder and gives less in return than the other? Does he believe that the lesser power of this spirit is to blame for that? Does he do it unthinkingly because "that's the way we've always done it"? If so, what were the founders of the tradition thinking? Is there some metaphysical law that spirits below a certain level of power can't have real traditions of their own?
Clarification is what I'm looking for, not necessarily revision...
Powered by hypermail