Legendary Electricity

From: Akkerman, Justin <JAkkerma_at_vmcsnat2.telecom.com.au>
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 95 17:31:00 EST


Electricity, as we know it, is a mental construct which the ancients (and even the mediaevals) did not have access to. Sure they knew about lightning
(difference in potential b/n the ground and the clouds). If it was a close
call your hair stood up. They even knew that oak trees got struck more often
(therefore reverence of oaks and mistletoe). They knew that amber, when
rubbed with something like cat fur (static electicity), did unusual things. They did not connect the two occurences as we do.

When electricity was first "isolated" as a phenomenon it was thought to be a fluid. This has since been discarded as an "idea construct" to describe the phenomena which we regard to be electrical. Our present idea construct
(electromagnetism) does _not_ account for the observances of ball ligthning.

What I am trying to get at is this. It does not matter what you use to describe an occurance, be it science or Orlanth, as long as it accounts for the world as it is perceived it is satisfactory. Quite simply "Electricity" did _not_ exist in pre-Enlightenment times. The events were accounted for in different ways.

The Chistian chruch tried to outlaw lightning rods and prevent insurers from covering lightning strikes. They reasoned that ligthning was the wrath of God. In using a ligthning rod we are sidestepping that wrath. Also when god did manage to get those sinners the insurance companies were allowing them to profit from the rage god was sending them. Maybe insurance companies are the minions of Satan. Prior to the invention of Electricity the Church had not trouble explaining events.

 Electricity is simply a framework within which the observed phenomena are categorised and explained. As I pointed out Electricity does not account for ball lightning, which _does_ exist. The menu is not the meal. Electricity is the menu. Electrocution by lightning is the meal. It does not matter if chance and electricity conspired to stike you down or if Orlanth and your pissing on his statue bring on the strike. In the end you get struck by lightning and you are dead.

In Glorantha, of course gold glows b/c of its "spiritual" properties. Glorantha is a "spiritual"/magical world. People need look no further than the mystical to explain all Observed phenomena. Orlanth and his family are the best way of explaining all atmospheric phenomena. (even better than our science which is eminently fallible) The only thing which he can't explain are those damned changes wrought by that thrice damned other goddess of the middle air.

Justin A


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