Euhemerism, apotheosis, and heroquests

From: Graydon <saundrsg_at_qlink.queensu.ca>
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 17:23:34 -0400 (EDT)


On Wed, 6 Sep 1995 Simon Hibbs writes:
> Answer me this. If you reject euhemerism completely, how do you explain
> the power of heroquesting to change myth?

I think there is a useful distinction between euhemerism - which is saying 'Jesus was just this radical whose followers declared him a god later' - and apotheosis - which is saying, Bragi the Old, noted skald, was accepted into the Aesir as God of Poetry and is now married to Idunn and look, if you pray to him you get better at composing Drottkvaett.

Sartar was a man; now he's a god, and this was a real change. While there are certainly a bunch of gods like this in Glorantha, there are also gods who were born as gods, and while there are undoubtedly some differences between the divine states of the two groups I'm not sure it's useful to try to figure out what those are.

I do think it's useful to keep in mind that Glorantha doesn't operate on the Classical model of linear time; Glorantha is a place where you can get at the past events that constrain what is possible for you to do now. So a Heroquest can be an exercise in digging down through the layers of the accumulated happenstances so you can change something. One of the things you can change is whether or not you are a mortal.

So I think Glorantha validly has the man -> god direction, it's not at all clear to me that it properly has the god -> man direction - while someone's followers might make inflated claims of their power, if they can't grant spells they're obviously not a god, so it's possible to tell if the followers are having attacks of whishful thinking or not.

saundrsg_at_qlink.queensu.ca | Monete me si non anglice loquobar.


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