Thomas Lindgren talked about the Bi-Cameral mind, an eminently Gloranthan idea! For example, in the Glorantha Players Book we are told that the Orlanthi habitual credit the gods with their actions.
Maybe an illuminate is some-one who recognizes the voices in their heads as the promptings of their conscience rather than as gods. This would explain illuminates ability to disregard cult rules; there is no-one shouting at them that they are wrong! Jayne even suggests the existence of cults of the conscious in the bicameral period.
Mysticism and Humanism seem to imply full consciousness, even according to this interpretation.
On the other hand it is clearly impossible for a player to play a character who is not conscious in a completely satisfying way. The obvious fix-up is for players when making a decision to speak as the god and refer to their character in the third person. When speaking in character they can't speak reflexivly. I rather suspect that this is far too much to ask and is also likely to diminish player/character identification to a minimum. In a group where everyone follows a different god each player could play the god of another, whispering advice in their ear. Somewhat like the Shadows in WW's "Wraith" game.
Another draw-back is that Jayne seems to imply that bicameral people did
not need rituals to contact their gods which leaves heroquesting out in
the cold. I suppose you could rationalize by saying they used rituals to
conform the imagined gods of different individuals to a social norm.
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Andrew Behan
ajbehan_at_alf2.tcd.ie
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