Plague of Healing scenario

From: Gianfranco Geroldi <giangero_at_Rh5jckhaVFPQim4q2DSDQ2uNGeRmZ6oqqcD29fghWm-tTm3LI4W0dxnZu-1V7CzFUSk>
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2009 05:31:41 -0800 (PST)

> >I would suggest we to keep to the Bronze Age concepts
> of disease
> >and illness. The modern ideas of pathogens, to me
> anyway, suck out
> >the ongoing fear of a malady that strikes from
> "nowhere". While
> >there might be understanding that a well is
> "polluted" and a
> >forbidden swamp is "unclean", the description
> of illness as a physical
> >entity which breeds and transmits itself through
> predictable vectors
> >is a distinctly modern concept. My understanding of
> Bronze Age sickness
> >that it is a type of curse that affects the body, one
> that is generally
> >avoidable by holding to a culture's taboos, but
> potentially can strike
> >the victims without warning even if they have followed
> all of the rules
> >of survival.

Modern psychological concept of sickness is the same as ancient one. We get sick, we blame somebody else or some fault of us (we didn't cover ourselves in the cold, we ate the wrong food or too much, we met that ill person and got 'plagued' et cetera). Much like the ancients.
We are not able to reason in mathematical and true statistical terms, as science teaches us. *Unless* we train hard to do so. Ordinary people (like me, at least) usually reason much like people of a millennium ago in everyday life, despite all of our 'school' education. That's why all that midichlorian quabble didn't buy me, a decade ago :-)

Probably there is a God or Goddess of Good Contagium in Glorantha. A sort of healed Mallia or of unpolluted Mallia. And I don't think he/she is Chalana Arroy. Chalana's healing powers don't spread like a plague, but I like the idea of 'health' coursing everywhere from person to person, much like a plague. A good 'Healer' scenario could be painted from this point, IMO. A Plague of Health (TM) would be perceived as Good or Bad in the end?

Gian