> I've listened to Greg describing mysticism at a few conventions. My memory is that he said something like this.
> There is this world that we know and see.
> There is the other world that we cannot see, where there are gods and spirits and magic.
> Mysticism is practice of achieving something that is neither of this world nor of the other world.
> (Apologies if I have mis-remembered).
Since I must have been in probably half those sessions and after-session talks, that's pretty much what mysticism does.
> I cannot understand this paradox, which some call the Ultimate and others call the Void. But I can understand that there are people who, through asceticism or austerities, can achieve a limited understanding of this state.
Not as much an understanding as a lasting experience. An experience that will most likely push the unprepared into insanity or lethal shock.
> And there are other approaches that can also lead to such an understanding. Given that I cannot understand it, I tend to treat it just as I treat the mathematical concept of infinity (and the infinite number of different infinities). Mysticism is there, and can be used in various stories (just as infinity may be used in mathematical equations).
I always thought that people who understand math with infinities should be made NPCs and taken from active play, just like disciples of the Great God aspects.
The most detailed description of a mystical journey is that of the successful path to dragonhood by Obduran the Flyer and the failure of Ingolf Dragonfriend to go all the way of that same path due to his entanglement with the world.
What I gathered from that path is that the mystic does indeed aquire access to vast magical powers of various background - powers that he usually keeps away from himself (eastern mystics' zone of magic suppression), but which he may also channel. If the mystic does the channelling to further his penetration of the mystical path, apparently that's ok, and if conincidentally this affects a whole nation of hostiles, there is nothing wrong with that. There seems to be a difference in the intent, or in the lack of spiritual preparation when applying that access to magic, that leads to the failure of the mystic.
There may be side effects of powerful mystics or beings tied to the Ultimate meditating. In the EWF, this was referred to as the dragon dream. From the effects of the Inhuman King on the dragonewt cities in Dragon Pass I suppose that snapping out of it for a short while doesn't eliminate all of that dream, but maybe weakens its reality slightly for a while.
Few mystics will get to the bhodisatva-like stature of a Dragonet, and most will probably merge with the ultimate for good and achieve Nirvana.
> ---
> In Glorantha, since the dawn, there have been only a very few who have achieved a full enlightenment. And they are _not_ all from the East. In the Dragon Pass area, Heort and Harmast both confronted the void and survived (OK, Heort achieved this before the dawn but lived until after the dawn).
Facing the void in ever more gruesome manifestations is what the mystic path consists of, at least in the later stages, but I don't think that surviving a confrontation with the void (and possibly gaining some small benefit from that) makes you a mystic. Much more likely getting that benefit makes you a failed mystic.
> Obduran the Flyer achieved full draconic enlightenment. I am fairly sure that most (all) of the long term residents of Old Temple have achieved enlightenment.
The Old Temple flyers may achieve transcendence into pure Storm (rune), but as with mathematical infinities, I think that's a different quality from enlightenment.
> And Arkat too likely achieved enlightenment.
I thought to bring up Arkat and Nysalor, too - but somewhat closer to the entanglement-dampened way of mysticism.
Here's another weird way to describe the conflict between Arkat and Nysalor. Let's start with the dream entities of the east that did not survive confrontation with the Ultimate, and look at the much lower powered parallel of a Puppeteer Illusionary Army getting into contact with a superhero or dragon. IMO the Sunstop started a split in realities focused on Nysalor. The Nysaloran reality started to spread out and covered most of western Genertela with its light, but creating an area of shadow on its outside. Even Nysalor himself said so, "Where there is light, there also is shadow." Arkat was the power on that outside and perceived this spreading shadow as Gbaji, lies and deception, and set out to deal with it and push it back. As the brightness of the empire was pushed back inwards, this bordering force was also perceived as Gbaji (deception) inside the Bright Empire, and likewise recognized as unreal (without any direct tie to the Ultimate. If it had been unreal, either side should have collapsed, but unfortunately neither side was cut off from the Ultimate, and so the conflict escalated. If nobody knows the exact outcome of the battle at the City of Miracles, probably that's because it is unknowable.
> Many of these, having achieved enlightenment, have decided to embrace the world rather than joining the void/withdrawing from the world.
> This number, to my understanding, is close to and possibly more than the number in the East that have achieved enlightenment since the dawn.
If you are referring to human mystics, you may be right. With the dragonewts, I'm not so sure. All the texts suggest that the inhuman king stage is optional (for the individual, not for dragonewt-kind) and not required for a ruler dragonewt (aka full priest) to achieve the Ultimate.
> Discuss :)
Sure. :)
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