Re: Tilting at Windmills

From: plarsen_at_...
Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2001 12:30:38 -0600 (CST)


Guy Hoyle says:

> Since windmills obviously have great practical value for Orlanthi, as
> well
> as symbolic ones, wouldn't it be likely that at least a few Sartarite
> tribes might have windmills powered by wind daimones? It seems like a
> worthwhile investment of the tribe's magic to me, reinforced
> mythologically
> by the association of wind with earth (in the form of grain). Though I
> normally don't encourage the use of magic for trivial purposes
> (clipping
> one's toenails, cooking dinner, etc.), it seems like this is just the
> kind
> of thing you WOULD use magic for.

Turning the powers of the world to industrial purposes seems impious to me, kind of, excuse me, Godlearnerish (them's fighting words!). Now I can see the miller offering a prayer and sacrifices to the Earth and Air (as well as the milling god)and being rewarded with a good wind, smoothly turning axel, and all, but it would be a chancier thing than "we've bound an Umbroli to the sails." I suppose Westerners would have no problem with this -- most elemental Essences have no personalities; they are spiritual tools of a sort -- but they have, I think, a tendency towards reductionist non-wholistic thinking that is very foreign to Theists and Animists. That's what I think, anyway.

Peter Larsen

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