Re: Sorcery not malkioni ?

From: Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_...>
Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2013 21:54:25 +1300

On 2/14/2013 6:38 PM, David Cake wrote:
> Yeah, but only roughly. It only makes the point stronger in any case -
> in Eastern myth, they claim that they knew of sorcerers, priests and
> shamans more or less before there were even people. (contrast with the
> Western myths, in which Danmalastan has only sorcery users within its
> borders, and their first contact with spirits is a Big Deal and very
> confronting and disruptive.)

That's true, they do. But Vithelan mythology shows signs of being worked over to support the philosophy rather than the philosophy proceeding from an interpretation of mythical events.

For example Mashunasan interprets the Gods War as a sequence of five Cosmic Wars that are also mental states that the mystic must undergo to become enlightened. The parallels between this and the five stages of God in Malkioni philosophy are rather close (even more so when the fivefold cosmology is unknown to the Mostali) that leads me to suspect the Easterners learned of it from the Malkioni, thought it useful and embedded it within their cosmology.

Is Eastern mythology one big lie? Not at all. It's a vehicle for transmitting Transcendental Truth rather than a mythological record. As a result of being used to transmit truth, the mythology has apparent anachronisms and related errors (poor Finzalvo is made to fish for islands throughout all eternity because the truth of what he does is relevant at all stages of consciousness).

--Peter Metcalfe